Sunday School, Noah and the Flood - We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

I'm really excited because today we start a brand new series.

We're gonna be taking a break from our series where

we've been going through the Gospel of Luke. We're gonna

just take a nice nine week break throughout the summer

and take a break, and we're gonna go through this series,

which we are calling Sunday School. Sunday School is our title.

We're very excited. We're basically just gonna be going through

some of the most famous Bible stories from the Old Testament,

and our purpose in the series is twofold. The first

being that not all of us grew up in church,

so some of us we're just unfamiliar with these stories.

Maybe we're new we're believers, and so we have yet

to dig into our Old Testament and kind of become

accustomed with these stories. But it would be really cool

to get to introduce these stories, potentially for the very

first time, and see what they have to teach us

about who God is and how that informs how we

understand who we are and how we understand the world

around us. Second, if you did grow up in church,

you've probably heard these stories a bajillion times, but sometimes

our Sunday School or maybe even our kids' Bibles can

leave out some of the more intense details of these stories.

But we want to look at these Bible stories in

their fullness of breadth and depth, in the realities they teach,

and the lessons that we need and can and get

to in our privilege to learn from them. So that's

our series. It's gonna be a good time, really really excited.

There's some really dope Bible stories. So I'm just gonna

pray and we're gonna jump right into itus. That sound good, awesome,

let's pray. Father God, we love you, We thank you

for your word. We thank you for those who have

gone before us to set an example of how to

follow you, of how to not follow you, or God

has warnings or good examples as an instruction. And so Lord,

we just ask that during this time that your word

would have its way in our hearts, in our lives,

that we would be conformed to look more like you,

that we'd be built up in our faith, and that

we would glorify you as your church. So we thank you.

We just asked you would use this time in Jesus name.

Everyone said amen. All right, Well, we live in a

day and age where every time you turn on the news,

or maybe every time you open your phone, you run

the high possibility of hearing someone warning you or maybe

predicting that the actions taken by a country, the actions

or decisions made by a person, are going to lead

to world wars, They're going to lead to changes in

a catastrophic manner to the climate, all leading and ultimately

resulting in the end of the world. Now, I believe

everyone expects in some way the world to end. Everyone

you believe in God, you don't believe in God. One day,

you're like the clock is ticking, time will run out,

Something is going to happen, Something is going to bring

the world as we know it to an end. And

this has been the same with every single generation. We

see it all over the place in our generation, but

this has been every single generation throughout history, throughout time.

Every time there's a major war, every time there's a

major pandemic, or maybe they're some kind of phenomenon in

the skies or even just literal dates in milestones. Right,

we're like, all right, one, one, one, what that seems

like it's something's gonna happen. Right, How many of you

remember how the world felt like it was maybe ending

in twenty twenty, right, how about the world was how

the world was supposed to end in twenty twelve? Do

you remember that the world, no matter your beliefs, all

seem to have this sense that in some way or

some form, this world is going to end. But did

you know that the world has already ended once before?

The world has already ended once before. There was a

time on this earth that was just like today, people

living lives, going about there every single day. They're getting married,

they were eating and drinking, until suddenly their world came

to a catastrophic end. The entire world was destroyed. Every

person and animal on the face of the land, everyone

on the earth was destroyed by a world wide flood.

Everyone except a man and his family, along with two

of every kind of animal kept safe in a massive arc. Now,

if you didn't grow up in church, it is still

very likely that you have heard one of the most

famous Bible stories, and that is the story of Noah's Ark,

or maybe Noah and the Flood, which today that is

the Bible story that we're going to be looking at.

So today's message is simply titled Noah in the flood.

I do also have a second title for today's message,

which is this Noah in the flood, We're going to

need a bigger boat. Not only does everyone believe that

one day the world is going to end, but actually,

interestingly enough, across the world there are over two hundred

distinct flood myths. It estimated that there's about two hundred

to three hundred flood myths or legends worldwide. Now you

might call that a coincidence, but that doesn't really feel

like a coincidence to me, And in fact, the Bible

says that it's not a coincidence. The Bible, God's Word

in fact tells us that the flood did happen. God

only tells us that it did happen, but he also

tells us why it happened. So today we're gonna look

at the world famous story and see what God wants

us to learn from it. Now Here at the roots,

we love to go through the Bible. We just got

we're taking a pause in Luke, going to another place

in the Bible. That's what we want to dig into

God's Word. And so that's still what we're doing today. Today,

We're going to be finding ourselves in chapter six of

the Book of Genesis. So if you flip to the

very beginning of your Bible, pass the table of contents

the chapter six, you'll be right where you need to be.

If you don't have a Bible, we have some out

on the resource desk. Please go grab one. Take it

for yourself. We'd love for you to have that and

keep that. Now, I will say that this entire story

is about four chapters long, so we're going to read

that together. I'm just kidding. We're not going to do that.

It would take me. I looked it up, because it

would take like fifteen to twenty minutes at like a

good out loud pace to read the entire thing. So

what we're going to do is, instead, we're going to

walk through this story together. So have your Bible open

because we're walking through this together. I don't want to

do this alone. Open it up Chapter six Genesis. We're

going to look at the main points. We're going to

look at the main parts, and we're gonna look at

the main purposes for this story. And after today, or

maybe even just today, after service, I would encourage you

to read the entire thing for yourself. Once again, it's

only fifteen, like twenty minutes, and that's reading out loud.

You maybe you could read even faster in your head.

But maybe this is something you could read before you

go to bed tonight or before your children go to bed.

It is truly a fantastic story. What the story is

going to show us is that God destroyed the world

for its wickedness but saved Noah for his righteousness. That

judgment for sin was coming, but only those righteous in

God's eyes would be saved. We're gonna look at this

story in three major parts. We're gonna look at the

it's gonna the first will be the corruption of the land,

the second is going to be the correction Plan, and

the third will be the Covenant with Man it rhymes.

They'll start with see and it's easy for me to

remember is this four chapters of stuff? Trying to remember

it all. So if you're taking notes, we're gonna start

with the very first part of the story, which is

the corruption of the land. Now, I want to kind

of remind you, maybe give you a little quick update.

This is the sixth chapter of Genesis. In one sense,

a lot has happened, and in another sense, it's only

the sixth chapter of the entire Bible. So let's let's

try and get a little bit of a recap. What

are we walking into, What is the context that we're

looking at. Well, chapters one and two of Genesis are

pretty cool, They're pretty awesome. God is creates, He's creating the.

World and everything, the universe, the stars, and it's awesome

and good. By chapter three we see the fall and

rebellion of man and kind, where Adam and Eve disobeyed God,

and so God sent them out of paradise in a garden,

and God cursed the man, and on account of him

the land, and basically after that, everything just kind of

goes downhill. The next chapter, Cain murders his brother, and

then badness continues to spread.

We see men kill other men for wounding them. We

see men start to take more than one wife. Everything

that God had created as good and given order and

a proper place for it starts to break down in

different ways. So fallen and sinful man has been multiplying

on the earth, and so with it, sin and wickedness

had been multiplying on the earth, which is what we

see that God sees in verse five of chapter six

If you look there with me, says the Lord saw

that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,

and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart

was only evil, continually, only evil. Continually. The Lord looks

and sees the wickedness of man, and how great it

was on the earth it was, how great it was,

so great that it says that every intention of the

thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually. Since the

fall of mankind three chapters prior, man has never gotten

better by themselves. Man has only gotten worse. Humans even

now are deeply sinful. This hasn't changed. Look at how

the Psalm the Psalmist puts it. In Psalm fourteen, says

the fool says in his heart there is no God.

They are corrupt, They do abominable deeds. There is no

one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven

on the children of man, to see if there are

any who understand, who seek after God. They have all

turned aside together, they have become corrupt. There is no

one who does good, not even one. And the apostle Paul,

quoting from here and just other places, goes even farther.

In Romans three and says, what then, are we Jews

any better off? No, not at all, or we have

all charged that all both Jews and Greeks are under sin.

As it is written, no one is righteous, no not one,

No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have

turned aside. Together. They have become worthless. No one does good,

not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They

use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is

under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood, and their paths

are ruined and misery in the way of peace they

have not known. There is no fear of God before

their eyes. When God looks at mankind, this is what

he sees, and we're still not done. Romans one is

even more intense when it talks about how mankind and

his wickedness has rejected God. It says in Romans one

twenty nine, they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, coveteousness, malice.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. Their

gossips slanderers God, are haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful,

inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice

such things deserve to die, they not only do them,

but give approval to those who practice them. Scripture is

crystal clear that every single one of us has fallen

and is indeed sinful. Romans three just sums it up, says,

for all has all have sin and fall short of

the glory of God. Sometimes, even as believers, I believe

that we may forget just how sinful our flesh is,

that even we might not realize that the sneaky sin

of pride may have infected our entire life. And so

instead of seeing ourselves on this list, we judge others.

But Scripture, I mean, Scripture knows our hearts. God knows

our hearts, and so what does he do? He gives

us no wiggle room because in Romans chapter two, he says,

therefore you have no excuse, oh man, every one of

you who judges, for in passing judgment on another, you

conde yourself because you, the judge, practiced the very same things,

saying your hypocrites. Do you suppose, oh man, you who

judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself,

that you will escape the judgment of God. God leaves

no stone unturned, because there is nothing hidden from God.

He sees every human heart, and because of that, he

sees our deeply sin riddled hearts that lie within our chest.

And so when God looked down at the earth, he

saw the terrible, terrible, awful, wickedness of mankind, and it

grieved him. It grieved him to his heart so much

so that he was sorry that he made mankind. And

I believe that we kind of maybe get a glimpse

of this as parents, as siblings, as friends, husbands and wives,

when we see sin running rampant in the lives of

those that we love, the pain it causes in our

own hearts. To watch the sin take over someone else's life,

we watch the people we love make the wrong decision

over and over and over again. And maybe we have

those relationships that have broken down so badly that we

wish that they just maybe never happened in the first place.

So what about when God looks down and sees the

pervasive sin in our life? God looks at mankind who

continues to rebel and sin against him, and his heart

feels something similar, and so God decides he's going to

deal with the issue. We see this in verse six

of Genesis says, and the Lord regretted that he had

made man on the earth, and it grieved him to

his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man,

whom I have created from the face of the land,

man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens,

for I am sorry that I have made them. So

God sees the wickedness and decides he's going to blot

out every human, every man, everything that he had created.

God is going to destroy everyone because of the severity

and pervasiveness of sin. But at the end of this

text we actually see a glimmer of hope because God

looks down and sees the terrible sin everywhere. But he

also sees Noah, who finds favor in the eyes of God.

We see that in verse eight. It says, but Noah

found favor in the eyes of the Lord, which leads

us to our second part of this story. If you're

taking notes, you can write the correction plan. After we

get this little introduction to Noah, we get kind of

like a little bio about who he is. In verse nine,

it says, these are the generations of Noah. Noah was

a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.

So this is our little intro to Noah. He's a

righteous man, he's blameless in his generation, and he walked

with God. Noah was set apart from his generation noticeably.

So so God sees that, and he actually comes to

Noah to tell him what he's planning to do. We

see this in verses eleven through fourteen. He says, now

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

was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold,

it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way

on the earth. If you didn't catch that, the earth

is really corrupt. And God said to Noah, I have

determined to make an end of all flesh, for the

earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will

destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an arc of

gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it

inside and out with pitch. So God comes to Noen

tells him he's going to make an end of all

flesh because of the violence coming through mankind. But he

tells Noah to make an ark and gives him the

instructions to make it. This arc was massive. This arc

is incredibly large, and actually, to help give you an

idea of the size, actually have a couple of pictures

of the life size recreation of the arc that was

made at the Creation Museum in Kentucky, And if you

can look at the bottom, there's a little person standing

at the very bottom. To kind of get an idea,

do you have the second picture as well? The crowds.

This arc was incredibly large. We see in verse seventeen

says for behold, which is God speaking to Noah telling

him why he's doing this. I will bring a flood

of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in

which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that

is on the earth shall die. But I will establish

my covenant with you, and you shall come into the arc. You,

your son's, your wife, and your son's wives with you,

and every living thing of all flesh. You shall bring

two of every sort into the ark to keep them

alive with you. They shall be male and female. So

he tells Noah that though he is going to destroy

the world, that he is going to establish his covenant

with noahen that he's going to go into the Ark

to keep him, his family, and two of every creature

safe during the flood. He tells Noah what animals he

is to take, and to also store up food for

themselves for this journey. And so we see in verse

twenty two that Noah did everything that the Lord commanded

him to do. Then the Lord comes to no En

tells him why he gets to go into the Ark,

and verse one of chapter seven, then the Lord said

to Noah, go into the Ark, you and all your household,

for I have seen that you are righteous before me

in this generation. God tells Noah that the reason he

gets to go into the Ark, the reason he's being saved,

is because he has seen that Noah was righteous before

God in his generation. God then gives Noah more instructions

about the types of animals he's to take, and then

in seven days the flood would come that it was

going to rain for forty days and nights and blot

out every living thing that God had made. And once

again Noah did everything that the Lord commanded him to do.

And then crazy enough, the Bible gives us a literal

day of the year that the flood happened. Let's see this.

In Verse eleven says in the six hundredth year of

Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day

of the month. On that day, all the fountains of

the Great Deep burst forth, and the windows of the

heavens were opened, and rain fell upon the earth. Forty

days and forty nights. On the very same day, Noah

and his sons shem Ham and Jayfeth, and Noah's wife

and the three wives of his son with them entered

the Ark. They and every beast according to its kind,

all the livestock according to its kind, and every creeping

thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind,

and every bird according to its kind, every winged creature.

They went into the ark with Noah two and two

of all flesh, in which there was the breath of life.

And those that entered, male and female of all flesh,

went in as God had commanded him, and the Lord

shut him in. So the flood comes just as God

said it would, and Noah obeys God. And Noah, along

with his family and all the animals, enter the ark

just as God commands them to the flood. Waters continue

forty days on the earth, and during that time the

waters continued to rise. The boat floated on top of

the waters, and the waters are so high that the

Bible says that they covered the tallest mountains. It says

by cubits. But I did the math and it's by

over twenty two and a half feet. So think waters

covering Mount Everest by twenty two and a half feet.

Mind you, Everest is twenty nine thousand and thirty two

feet at twenty two and a half feet to that.

So the waters rose, and the people of the Earth

and everything on it perished, But only Noah and those

on the arc were safe. See this in Genesis seven,

verse twenty one. And all flesh died that moved on

the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm

on the earth, and all mankind, everything on the dry

land and whose nostril was the breath of life died.

He blotted every living thing that was on the face

of the ground, man and animals, and creeping things, and

birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth.

Only Noah was left, and those who were with him

in the ark and the waters prevailed on the earth

one hundred and fifty days. So it rains for forty

but the water remains prevailing for one hundred and fifty days.

And normally this might be where in a children's book,

everyone's feeling like really happy, everyone's feeling really good. You

get this adorable little picture of the arc and all

the animals sticking out the top of it and the

rainbow above it, and they're sitting floating on the waters.

And I think that the children the children's books do

get that right. It is it is a happy time

that the animal owls, and Noah and all his family

are so so safe. But where I think it misses

it is the catastrophic scene that would have been going

on outside the arc. It's family service. So even still,

I won't go there. But let's just let's just say this,

maybe in a couple words, the entire world is submerged.

It rains for forty days, and there's stuff coming up

from on the ground for forty days. The entire world

is submerged. You can only swim for so long, you

can only go without food for so long, not to

mention keeping the sharks away for only so long one

hundred and fifty days, the waters prevailed and the world

was destroyed. The world as they knew it had completely

come to an end, and all because of the sinfulness

and wickedness that ran so rampant in the lives of mankind. Then,

kind of almost funny enough, it's interesting. It says that

the Lord remembers Noah and the animals on the Ark,

and you're like, that's good. That's a good thing that

he remembered them, you know. It says that the Lord

remembered Noah those with him on the Ark and sent

a wind to blow over the earth and make the

flood subside. God didn't forget, by the way he knows everything,

and that for one hundred another one hundred and fifty days,

the water slowly abates, so rans for forty the water

stays for one hundred and fifty and then it takes

another one hundred and fifty days for the water to

be completely gone. It's a really long time. Now. During

this time, Noah has been in the ark with his family,

and after forty days of rain, he kind of starts

sending out birds from a window in the ark to

see if the waters had started to recede. He does

this for some time until one of the birds he

sends a dove, finally returns with an olive branch to

which Noah's clewed in that the waters had finally abated,

and while the waters had receded, the ark had come

to rest on the side of a mountain, and when

the water was dried from the earth, Noah removed the

cover of the ark and looked and saw the face

of the ground was finally dry. The Bible tells us

about at this point, it had been about eleven months

of being on the ark, but Noah didn't yet leave

the arc. Just like with entering the ark and all

the other instructions, he waited until the Lord told him

what to do. And so finally, a month later, to

which they had now been on the ark, filled with

animals and each other for one year and ten days,

the Lord tells them it's time to come out of

the ark. Now, I just think this might be helpful

for us. Can you imagine living in a floating petting

zoo with your in laws for over a year. I

think we put ourselves maybe that shoe in their shoes.

We could understand the readiness to probably get off this arc.

I'm sure everyone was ready to get out. And so

everyone comes out of the ark and the Lord tells

Noah to bring out the animals so that the animals

can begin to multiply on the earth. And now we

finally get to our last part. If you're taking notes,

you can write the Covenant with Man. We see that

after Noah gets off the arc, that he builds an

altar to the Lord and offers burnt offerings to the Lord.

And then we see something incredible. After Noah offers these offerings,

it says that the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and

said this in his heart. We see in verse twenty one,

and when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord

said in his heart, I will never again curse the

ground because of man, For the intention of man's heart

is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again

strike down every living creature as I have done. While

the earth remains seed, time and harvest, cold and heat,

summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. God

says in his heart that never again will he destroy

everything with a worldwide flood. That even though man's heart

is evil, from his youth that he will not strike

down every living creature as he did. And we need

to hold onto this because we're going to come back

to this. But after God decides that in his heart,

just like last time, he comes to speak with Noah.

We see this at the beginning of chapter nine, verse one,

and God blessed Noah and his sons and said to

them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So

God blesses them and tells them to once again, they'll

start to fill the earth. If you're counting, that's eight people.

He then goes on to tell them that he now

gives them animals to eat, that they basically now they

get to eat animals, just as he had given them

the green plants to eat. I'm saying it's right here

in the Bible. If anyone tells you that you're not

supposed to eat meat, God tells us that we can

eat meat right here. Amen. All the meat eaters said amen.

But now the animals also, I'm kind of in line

with that, we're now going to fear mankind, which I

don't exactly know what that means. The relationship was beforehand,

but it does make you wonder. But then God also

goes on in a more serious note about how they

are not to eat the animals with the blood still

in it, and that for any animal or person that

murders an image bearing human, that that person is to

be put to death. And this also makes you think

because we read that the world before was filled with

murder and violence, and now the Lord is showing how

that is to not be tolerated. He then reiterates for

them to be fruitful and multiply, which I also think

that if you think about on a practical level, not

only is murdering wrong because you're destroying an image bearer

of God, but also there are only eight people left

in the world, so like murdering really, isn't that practical

kind of in that situation, it's not ideal. So then

God makes his covenant with mankind and the creatures of

the earth and says this in verse eleven. I establish

my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh

be cut off by the waters of the flood, and

never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.

And God said, this is the sign of the covenant

that I make between me and you and every living

creature that is with you for all future generations. I

have set my bow in the cloud and it shall

be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

When I bring the clouds over the earth and the

bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my

covenant that is between me and you and every living

creature of all flesh, and the waters shall never again

become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow

is in the clouds, I will see it and remember

the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of

all flesh that is on the earth. God said to Noah,

this is the sign of the covenant that I have

established between me and all that is on the earth

and all flesh that is on the earth. So God

made a promise and has made a promise that never

again would he destroy the world with a flood, and

he gives us a rainbow as a sign to remember

the covenant and promise to everyone on the earth, and

kind of as a side note, it should also serve

as a reminder that the rainbow. Specifically, it should serve

as a reminder for us of God's severeness regarding sin

and also his continued grace that even though we are

still so sinful from our youth. He shows us grace

by not sending a worldwide flood every couple of years,

which this brings me back to Verse twenty one in

Chapter eight says, and when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma,

the Lord said in his heart, I will never again

curse the ground because of man, for the intention of

man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither while I

ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.

We see in this verse that God is making a

promise to never again destroy the earth with a flood,

even though man is still sinful and wicked, even though

we still deserve it. What does this mean. It means

God punished sin with the flood. He brought justice on

the world, and he was right in doing so. But

what we see here is that the problem of man's

evil heart still was and is there. And how do

we know this well, not only does he say that

he is going to be gracious even though mankind's heart

is wicked from his youth, But look at our world today.

I could point at like a gajillion things, the same

world that God promised never to flood again because of

its sin has now taken the very sign of that

promise and uses it to promote all kinds of sin.

That's just an example. Mankind, like we saw earlier, as

the Psalmist rites, as Paul writes and shows, is still

deeply sinful and in continued rebellion to God. No one

does good, not even one. None is righteous, no not one.

Our hearts need help because just like we saw in

the story of the First end of the World, we

know that there is a final end of the world

where a judgment for sin is coming, and only those

righteous in God's eyes will be saved. But if all

mankind has an evil heart and no one is righteous,

not even one, then how can Noah be called righteous?

How can anyone be saved? If all our sinners deserving

of wrath and judgment? And I'm so glad that you

asked me that question. If we look at this story,

you actually see something very fast. This entire story, God

is the only person speaking. God speaks, and Noah obeys.

That's what That's the entire story. That's what we see.

It happens over and over and over again. Now, if

we took that at face value, we might think that

all we have to do is obey God to be saved,

But that would be a works based salvation. And no

one is saved on account of their good works, because,

as sinners, the best works that we have to offer

our filthy rags. They're worthless and they're stained with sin.

Not to mention, we have all of our own sin

that needs to be dealt with and accounted for. Our

good works will never be outweigh or our good works

will always be outweighed by our sin. So what does

this mean. It means that we're gonna need a bigger boat.

Noah had a boat that brought him through the judgment

of his generation, but we need something bigger or should

I say better than a boat to get us through

the judgment that is to come. That is when God

is going to judge the world for all its works

with fire. But we know if we are judged by

our works that we will be found wanting and dead

in our sin. So we need something better than works.

We need something bigger than just a boat. And in

Hebrews eleven, I believe gives us the exactly the answer

that we need. And I need that band to come up,

please and thank you. Hebrews eleven seven says this by faith, Noah,

being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen in

reverent fear, constructed an arc for the saving of his household.

By this, he condemned the world and became an heir

of the righteousness that comes by faith. Noah wasn't righteous

because of his works. Noah was righteous the same and

only way anyone has ever been made righteous, and that

is he believed God. He had faith in God. He

believed what God said his actions or work. His actions

or works didn't come from trying to earn anything, but

his obedience proceeded from his faith in God. It was

faith first that leads you to believe and then obey.

As pastor Greg likes to say, belief drives action. He

believed God and so acted, But it is his faith

that makes him righteous righteous because God views him as

righteous for his faith, just like Abraham. Romans four twenty

through twenty five, concerning Abraham, says no unbelief made him

waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong

in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully

convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

This is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.

But the words it was counted to him were not

written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It

will be counted to us who believe in Him who

raised from the dead, Jesus, our Lord, who was delivered

up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Just

like how God made a way for Noah to be saved,

God has made the only way for us to be

saved from the coming judgment. Noah was saved from the

flood by being in the Ark, and we are saved

from the judgment to come by being in Christ. And

that by faith and in Christ, not only will we

be saved, but because of Him, we will also have

a new and better covenant. That is the covenant in

His blood that covers our sins and gives us new

hearts and desires. This is the covenant. In This covenant

in Christ's Blood is exactly what we need because it

actually deals with the issue forever. It deals with the

punishment of our sin, and it gives us new hearts

and new desires that want to follow Jesus instead of

rebel against him. That for anyone who believes in Jesus

that they will be saved not only from the wrath

do their sin, but they will be given new life

by way of this new covenant accomplished by Christ. The

only way for a sinful rebel like me to be

made righteous is because Christ took my sin and gave

me his righteousness. I don't have any righteousness, but Christ

was perfectly righteous, and that's what Two Corinthians five twenty

one says. It says for our sake, he made him

to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in

him we might become the righteousness of God. It's beautiful.

It's beautiful. So what we need to see from this

text is that judgment is coming and only those righteous

in God's sight will be saved. So my question to

you is are you right in God's eyes? Are you

righteous in God's eyes? Have you been made right in

God's eyes? When he looks at you? What does he see?

Have you had your sin dealt with? Do you need

to remember that your sin was dealt with? This story

is such a beautiful picture of the Gospel. It's in

the entire history of mankind, man bad, God good. He

saves us, He makes away and brings us through the

Judgment to come. That's the entire Bible right there, in

four chapters. We need these reminders, in these warnings. This

isn't just a cute story about adorable animals on a

boat and a rainbow.

It's the truth of what our sin deserves. Think about that,

it's the truth of what our sin deserves. But God's

mercifulness towards the.

Righteous that even now, God is slow and patient with

you to have you right now, even in this moment,

hear the good news before it's too late. So I

pray that you would repent of your sin, you would

turn to Christ, put your faith in him, and be

found in him. He's the only thing that will get

you through the judgment to come. He deals with the

sin in your heart, giving you new heart, new desires.

He's the actual remedy, and he's the only way that

we could ever be described as Noah is in his

generation blameless, righteous one who walks with God. We laid

out a lot of different sins today. I don't believe

I missed any of us. But I think we could

even look at this and go, like, in our own generation,

is this what we would look like? What do we

stand out from our generation. Now, mind you only by

Christ will you? So? I'd say, if you look at

your life and you don't see anything different from what

you see around you in the world, whatever that is

that needs to be repentitive, you need forgiveness for that,

and you can find it in Christ. Before we close,

we're actually going to close with this song. Thank you,

worship to you for learning it. I want to read

a portion from one of my favorite hymns. It's a

reminder to me and hopefully to you as to why

and how we could ever be righteous in God's sight

that even as I still struggle with my sin day

and day out, I do have hope. And this is

I believe. It's the second verse. It says, when Satan

tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt

within UpWord, I look and see Him there, who made

an end to all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died,

my sinful soul is counted free for God, the just

is satisfied to look on him and pardon me, to

look on him and pardon me. When God looks at us,

he sees Christ and all his glory. Gosh, it's a

good Sorry where'd you please stand