Genesis 8-9 – Being Human

It's good to see you.

My name's Duncan.

I'm one of the leaders here at City Church.

And if you're new, you are very welcome.

We're delighted you can join us today.

We have been looking at Genesis.

We've been walking our way through the early chapters of Genesis.

And last week in particular, we began the story of Noah.

We began to consider the depth of human sin and rebellion, the ways in which man had fallen so far from God's design and desire for them.

And then we also see God's righteous judgment towards them in the flood.

And then we see his mercy to Noah is well and his family.

That through it all God is merciful.

And today we come to the end of the story of Noah.

But before we dive in, let me pray for our time together.

Loving Father, I thank you that you know us.

I thank you that you speak to us through your word.

And I pray now, as we come to your word, would you speak?

Would you direct what you have to say to each of us here?

I thank you that you are faithful, and I pray that you would continue to show and reveal your faithfulness through this passage.

Change us for your name's sake.

Amen.

My favorite film is The Lord of the Rings.

I think it's the best film ever.

You may enjoy other films, but I absolutely love The Lord of the Rings.

And there's many reasons I love Lord of the Rings.

One of the main reasons are the relationships within it, the characters themselves.

You feel like you get to know them, that you you know who they are.

And one of the key relationships in Lord of the Rings is Sam Gamge and his friend Frodo Baggins.

It's one of the key relationships, and Sam is the faithful friend through the story.

He is the one who continues in the relationship through the hardships and shows his faithfulness.

Even when Frodo rejects Sam and tells him to leave, Sam shows his faithfulness.

And at the end of the film, there's many characters who played important roles, but for me, Sam is just so key.

He is the one who goes on this journey from start to finish, the one who supports Frodo every step of the way.

And as people, we are impacted by stories such as these.

As people, we see people who are selfless and faithful, and it stirs something in us because it stirs something that is true.

You see, as I watch Lord of the Rings, I sometimes have to hold back my emotions because of what I'm seeing before me.

Because my emotions are stirred by the truths being played out in this story.

Yet the faithfulness we witness in that story or the faithfulness we witness in people around us cannot and does not compare to the faithfulness of God, the God of the Bible, towards us.

In these opening chapters of Genesis, one of the key themes has been God's faithfulness.

God remains faithful toward his creation continually.

And today, this is what we are going to be thinking about.

In these two chapters, I want us to grasp and understand the utter faithfulness of God.

A God who is faithful in our waiting, faithful in our blessings, and faithful in our rebelling.

God is faithful in our waiting.

And I wonder for you how you find waiting.

Because in this room, some of us may be like, I'm okay at waiting.

I'm pretty good at it.

Others of us just hate waiting.

We hate waiting.

But the guarantee for all of us is we're gonna have times of waiting.

It may be long times or just a moment.

It may be years of just waiting.

Becky and I have been, that's my wife, been in a season of waiting.

She's not just been eating a lot, she is a baby.

And we are waiting for a babino to be born.

And today is 38 weeks of pregnancy, and it has taken a long time.

It has felt like the moment that I found out, it has taken forever for this baby to come.

Last week at a community group, Becky was asking the community group to pray that the baby would come this week.

Thankfully, for Mark, it didn't because I'm able to preach today.

But it has felt like such a long time waiting for the baby.

And in this season of waiting, there's been different emotions I've felt.

There's been times of pure joy and excitement where I've had to contain my joy.

And in moments of my emotions feeling a bit tense and worried and just really longing and praying that everything would go smoothly for both Becky and our baby.

See, in times of waiting, even when it's a good thing we are waiting for, we feel different emotions.

We have different things stirring in us.

And in this narrative, what we see is Noah and his family in a similar position.

They are waiting, waiting for the waters to stop, waiting for the birds to return, waiting for the dry land to appear, waiting for the Lord to call them out of the ark.

Just scan with me through the passage.

Verse 2, the fountains of the deep and the windows of heavens were closed.

Verse 3, the waters receded from the earth continually.

Verse 5, the waters continued to abate.

Verse 6, at the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark and sent forth a raven.

It went to and from.

Verse 8, he sent forth a dove, verse 9, but the dove found no place to set her foot.

She returned.

Verse 10, he waited another seven days, and again sent forth the dove.

Verse 11.

The dove came back, behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf.

Verse 12, he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return.

Verse 13, in the six hundred and first year, the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried off the earth.

And Noah removed the covering and the of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry.

There is an intention in this narrative to build the anticipation, to build the idea of the wait.

The anticipation of what might come.

Just as myself and Becky have been waiting for the arrival of a new baby.

Noah and his family have been building in anticipation for the wait for a new start, a new world, a new beginning, day after day, week after week, month after month.

In this time of waiting, there is no other choice for them than to trust.

Think of Noah and his family in the ark, floating on the water.

They could not change their situation.

They couldn't do anything.

The design of the ark was not made to be directed, it was made to float.

They were just bobbing on the water.

And the question is, is how do we wait?

Because in all situations we face, we can either bring honor to God or dishonor.

We can either trust him or mistrust him.

In times of waiting are times that we are tested.

Because I know we as people love to feel as though we are in control.

You love to feel as though you're able to build your security.

You love to think you have control of what will or won't happen.

But no one in his family realize they have no control in their situation.

Yet the reality is we don't either.

That is true in times of waiting, but that's true across the board.

We feel as though we're in control.

We think we are.

We feel as though we're secure because of what we do, but we're not.

We may constantly plan and do things and think our plans are what makes us secure.

That is rubbish.

I'm not saying don't make plans, but I am saying don't depend on your plans.

Don't use your plans or allow your plans to be the place that you find security.

Whether that's a job or a future job, whether that's a plan for a future relationship, a plan where you will live, a plan of how much money you might save, a plan of keeping yourself secure through insurance or or through putting in good security in your home.

A plan, whatever plan it may be, it will not and cannot keep us secure.

And I get it.

I'm a planner.

I love to make plans.

When Becky two weeks ago asked our community group for prayer that the baby would come this week, I was like, no, I don't want it to come this week.

Not that I don't want it to come, I do.

But I hadn't got my plans in order.

I hadn't bought her snacks for during labor.

I hadn't got the playlists ready.

I was freaking out.

I was like, I'm not worked through which bag is going where in the car.

I hadn't checked with the hospital where the parking was and the situation.

I hadn't thought it through.

I hadn't made my plan.

And you may think that's silly, but that's what we do.

We think through our plans, we control, we can be secure.

And what we need to do is exactly what Noah and his family would have needed to do.

Trust in the one who is faithful.

Trust in the one who has the complete plan.

Trust in the one who promises his care for us.

Because we don't know what will or won't happen.

And if you are trusting anything else other than God, the God of the Bible, it will fail you.

But the guarantee and the confidence for Noah is secure.

And it can be for us.

If we rest in the faithfulness of God.

Because Noah had heard from God.

He had heard the promise in chapter 6, verse 18 I will establish my covenant with you.

See, Noah had not received the covenant before entering the ark.

Noah was waiting for that.

Noah had not experienced and known what the covenant was.

Noah had to wait.

And as they waited in the ark, they had to cling to the promise of the Lord that the Lord said he would give us a covenant.

And as they waited, they waited in hope.

Hope not based on the situation they are in, but on the one they trust in.

As it is for us, hope based on the faithfulness of our Lord God, knowing He will never let us down.

He can't.

Because we are forgetful people.

And yet the care through these chapters reveals the Lord is faithful.

It might not be in your timing, in how you think it should plan out, but the Lord is working and moving.

The Lord is faithful.

He will work out his plan in your life.

Because the fact is, there are many times we need to wait on the Lord, but we wait expectantly because of his promises to us.

Hebrews 13 reminds us: keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

So we can confidently say, The Lord is my helper, I will not fear.

What can man do to me?

The call to Noah and his family and the call to us is trust in the faithfulness of God.

Wait in hope to know that the one who brought you to this point is the one who will continue to be faithful.

The very fact that you are sat here right now, in this moment, here today, is a testament to God's faithfulness.

You sit here because He has chosen to be faithful to continue to sustain you.

You didn't determine that you would wake up today.

The Lord God did.

To believe the lie that you are in control is to deny the care of the Lord, to reject his care for you.

Even in the hardest times, while we wait, we do not need to fear.

Because the Lord is our helper.

Like, do you ever allow that reality to just shape you?

To think about that, to allow your emotions to be shaped by the reality that the Lord Himself declares to you that He is your helper, the one who spoke creation into being, the one who sustains all life, the one who sustains your life right now in this moment, the one who makes the sun rise and the sun set, the one who sends rain, the one who keeps the world spinning, the one who holds each star in place, the one who keeps the universe functioning, says to you, says to me, and all who trust in him, I am your helper, I have you, I am with you.

Do not fear, because you do not have anything to fear when you know God, the God of the Bible, the Lord God, is with you.

He has you.

Nothing you can do can make him become unfaithful to his promises.

God chooses and has chosen to be faithful towards us.

Even in times of waiting, when we feel, fail, sorry, to acknowledge him.

At times when we when we doubt him, he will not let you go.

He will not stop being faithful.

He will remain faithful to you in your waiting.

Just as he was to Noah and his family.

As they waited, they need to cling to his promises.

Because unlike us, unlike people around us, when he says he will do something, he will.

He always does.

God is faithful in our waiting.

And Noah and his family finally get to this moment.

And you can just imagine the excitement building.

Imagine day after day in the ark, hearing the waters rushing around, hearing the waters coming down, and suddenly they stop and you think, Oh, what's gonna happen?

Is it about to happen?

Are we gonna get off this ark?

And the anticipation begins to build.

And Noah sends out birds, and they come back with no sign that the waters have gone.

Yet he continues to hope.

Suddenly the dove returns with a branch, an olive leaf.

And you can imagine his excitement.

Imagine him getting this leaf and just rushing to everyone else, being like, an olive leaf.

Look! We're nearly there.

Are we nearly there?

And waiting continually.

And then he sends out the dove again, and the dove doesn't return.

And maybe they start questioning among each other why hasn't the dove returned?

Is it because the dry land is there?

Maybe.

And they wait and then they remove the cover and finally they see the dry land.

This is like Christmas on steroids.

They see the presence under the tree and they can't touch them.

They're there.

And they wait until the Lord God calls them out, invites them out, stepping out from the ark.

Can you imagine?

After spending nearly a year in the ark, day after day, month after month, in this new world, this new beginning.

And they know as they stand there, they know without a shadow of doubt, they only stand there because of God's faithfulness.

And there is only one response: worship.

After everything else, what can Noah and his family do but worship?

Look at verse 20.

Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered the burnt offerings on the altar.

That is the natural response when we understand, when we experience the salvation of the Lord.

Last week we saw the depth of our sin, of human sin and rebellion, considering how humanity had utterly rejected God, the creator God.

We saw God bringing his righteous judgment on the earth through the flood.

The fact that the horror of human rebellion was met by the horror of God's judgment.

And yet he shows mercy to Noah and his family.

Because of faith, faith in the way of salvation.

Finally, having seen and experienced God's salvation, Noah worships.

Because that is exactly how we should respond.

Whenever we dwell upon the Lord's salvation towards us, so easily we forget the joy of our salvation.

So easily I feel numbed at the realization of my salvation.

So easily we forget it.

Forget the desperate need that we have.

Forget the depth of our sin.

Forget the reality of God's judgment.

We forget all that he has done for us.

And when we forget, we will not worship.

Brother, sister in Christ, you stand here not because of your faithfulness, you stand here because of his faithfulness.

Because he saw your helpless state and chose to save you, to rescue you, to show love and mercy and grace towards you.

Noah rightly worships all God has done.

Noah rightly worships God in saving them.

Noah rightly sees the utter dependence they have upon God.

But maybe you've forgotten the joy of your salvation.

You've forgotten the reality of all God has done.

You've forgotten the reality of your salvation.

If you're here today and you know the saving work of Christ Jesus, that you are a believer, that you know all he has done for you, saving you from your brokenness and your sin.

You know he saved you from the weight of his judgment.

But you're failing to experience the joy of your salvation.

Cry out to your faithful father.

Cry out with the psalmist who cries, restore to me the joy of my your salvation.

Because our faith has never just been about our head knowledge.

We need to know the truths of scripture, yes, but we need to know that we experience the reality of our salvation, that we long to taste and see that the Lord is good.

We long to have the joy of our salvation restored time and time again.

Because as you wait expectantly, you wait with other hope and security, knowing that even though you don't feel It's right now.

He is faithful.

Knowing today, though, you don't know the utter joy of your salvation, he will once again restore it to you.

Don't doubt in his faithfulness.

Cling to him as you wait.

Because God is faithful in our waiting.

Just as God is faithful in our blessings.

The story of Genesis so far has been revealing the Creator God, his longing for life, his longing for relationship with humanity, with his creation, his longing for human flourishing, his longing to give good gifts to his creation.

And Noah and his family begin this new life in this new world.

And there are so many echoes of Genesis 1 and 2 in this passage.

Echoes revealing the continued faithfulness of God, the blessings towards his creation.

Because God does not just save them, but he wants to bless them.

That's the heart of God.

Chapter 9, verse 1.

After all the sin, all the rebellion, God shows mercy and grace.

It is so striking the reality, how God is so unlike us.

He continues to show his faithfulness.

He continues to show what he is gonna do.

And yet the issue still remains.

Chapter 8, verse 21.

I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.

God does not bless humanity because they have sorted themselves out.

They haven't.

No, God blesses humanity because he is faithful.

The issue of our heart remains.

The issue that we from birth are sinful remain.

The fall continues to have an effect.

The flood did not change that, the flood merely restrained it.

And we feel the weight of sin in our lives today, all around us.

And yet God blesses them.

The Lord God, who promised that he would make a covenant with Noah, fulfills his promise.

Look at verse 11 of chapter 9.

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 be there be a flood to destroy the earth.

And God said, This is the sign of my 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.

Noah and his family enter the ark of this promised hope in this covenant with God, and here they get it, after waiting day after day, week after week, month after month, trusting, resting, remembering.

And God makes his promise.

He shows that he is faithful.

A covenant that he will never do what he has done, he will never flood the earth again.

In the midst of human sin and rebelling, he will never destroy the earth again in this way.

And with every covenant of God there is a sign.

And the sign is a bow in the sky, revealing the faithfulness of him towards his creation.

And I wonder for you, Christian brother or sister in Christ, how many times do you actually take moments when you see a rainbow in the sky?

How much do you just dwell and think and allow yourself to be reminded that that is a display of God's faithfulness?

That is a display that he withholds his judgment from us.

Once again, as people continue to rebel against him, he is determined that he will not blot out in this way life again.

In the midst of God's blessing, there is also restraint to the rebellion of humanity.

Look at verse four.

But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood.

And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning.

From every beast I will require it, and from man, from his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed.

For God made man in his own image.

God blesses man, but he brings boundaries.

Boundaries for food just as he did in the Garden of Eden.

Boundaries for both man and animals.

That every life, human life taken will be answered for.

Violence will not fill the earth as it did before the flood, though there will be violence.

And as we gaze on the blessings and the promise of God, we we fail to grasp his faithfulness towards us in setting about boundaries and his law.

See, as broken people, we often look at God and think he withholds good from us.

We think he withholds benefits, we think he withholds what the best life possible is.

Yet God is not that type of God.

That taking human life will not go unpunished.

It will not be unaccounted for.

And at the core of why this is so evil and perverse, at the core of it is how he describes us.

For God made man in his own image.

As those who bear God's image, we have intrinsic value and worth.

You're not valuable and precious because your parents said so.

You're not valuable and precious because of what you bring to society.

You are not valuable and precious because you know how to take a good Instagram picture.

No, your value and worth comes from the fact that you bear the image of the Creator God.

It is who you are.

It is evil when humans seek to dehumanize and devalue other humans.

As people, we have zero authority to attribute value and worth to anyone.

God, the creator God, speaks and he is the one who gives life.

Though we are broken, though we are sinful, we still bear his image and likeness.

He knits us together in the womb.

As those who bear his image and likeness, it is always evil to take life, whether born or unborn.

As people, we do not get to determine when an image-bearer has the right to life.

The right to life is given by the giver of life.

The value and worth of people is given to them, not earned.

You did not earn it.

It is vile when we seek to dehumanize people, to justify killing.

The Lord God will see a reckoning for every life taken.

And as he tells Noah and his family, so he calls us.

That as we are image bearers, we are called to bear his image in his creation, to express and reveal him in every part of creation.

God's design has always been and will continue to be until Christ returns, about him receiving the glory and praise due his name.

Habakkuk 2 says, For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Until that day, until that day when we will see lasting restoration to his creation, our aim, your aim as a believer, as a Christian, is to bear the image of God, to display him as best you can, knowing he is faithful, knowing he uses us in our weakness to display his grace.

Knowing one day he will bring about this amazing work of full restoration when all will see and know him to be glorious.

In every blessing that we have, the Lord shows his faithfulness.

And yet he continues to show his faithfulness even in our rejection.

Because God is faithful in our rebellion.

After all that had happened, all that Noah and his family had done and experienced and seen, you would think, you would think that they would be so careful, that they would be so mindful of not returning to the way things were, to not allow sin to creep in, longing to live for God, longing to give him glory as they should.

And yet it is so soon that we see the brokenness of humanity once again, exposed in these the end of these chapters, these chapters.

The death of human sin continues.

Verse 20.

That for us we think, oh well, Noah was drunk, yeah, maybe bad, and he was naked.

We don't really think or feel the weight that is meant here.

Noah, like so many though, is warping the blessings of God.

This has been the pattern since the fall.

People warping good gifts of God, seeking the creation to be the thing that satisfies.

Noah drinks to the point he passes out.

And that may be lifted up as an achievement, especially in Ireland, but here it is not, and today it is not.

It is an utter warping of God's purpose for us.

As those who bear his image, this does not display and honor him.

But instead, Noah is also taking the blessings of God and seeking to find satisfaction in the creation rather than the creator.

And nakedness here is an act of shame.

It reveals shame.

Since Genesis 3, nakedness has been shameful.

And it points to our sinful nature, points to the brokenness.

And Noah to be naked is a shameful thing.

He is drunk, he is naked.

And sin just continues because his son comes in.

Ham comes to his father.

And verse 22, we see Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.

And if we don't think through this, we don't grasp what is going on.

We might just damn play, oh, it's just siblings talking.

But here, the father is the head of the family.

He is the one who deserves respect and honor from his children.

And even though Noah has sinned, it does not justify Ham.

This is not just a situation of siblings speaking about their father.

But rather, it's showing dishonor towards their father.

It is taking the order of creation, and Ham, because of his sin, is warping it.

And the shame of Noah's nakedness should not have led him to respond like this, but rather like his brother's.

He should have longed to cover and clothe his father's nakedness.

He should have longed to show love towards his father, not speaking and sharing and gossiping in the shame of his father, to restore dignity to his father.

But he seeks to spread the shame of his father, to boast over it.

What is tragic is how once again people are just revealing how broken we are.

God has just worked this amazing thing, provided a new start for humanity, bringing chaos back once more into order.

And here we see sin again deconstructing God's good design.

The son placing himself above his father, bringing shame and dishonor toward his father, bringing disorder, disunity into the family unit.

And in 2019, this may seem light, but it reveals once more the issue of humanity, the sinful heart we have, each one of us, being exposed in the actions of Noah and his son.

And we could have thought, we could have felt hope in these chapters.

We may know the conclusion of the story, but as you look at the ark, you could have thought there was hope for humanity.

There's this new start.

And yet, like Proverbs 26 says, it reveals our foolishness.

Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly with all the hope of this new start.

And when we think about Noah, we could begin to think maybe this is the man promised in Genesis 3.

Wonder is this the man?

The man who was promised, the man who would crush the serpent's head.

Is this the man to bring restoration?

Because it would have been easy to maybe think that.

Lamech, the father of Noah, declares this of his son.

His name is Noah, saying, Out of the ground the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.

The hope of all creation has been yearning, looking for the man, the one to meet all humanity's greatest need.

Yet with all this hope, with all this possibility, this new beginning, Noah shows he is not the man.

He is not the one to break the curse of creation.

Noah, like Adam, like Set, is not the man we long for.

And our passage ends with a thud.

Verse 29: all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

This man of faith.

All this hope placed on him, and yet he dies with the final account of his life, revealing the depth of human sin and brokenness.

Revealing the depth of our need.

The depth of our rebellion.

And yet, as we look here, now, today, back at Noah, we no longer need to search for the man.

We are not waiting for God to reveal his salvation plan toward us.

We are no longer waiting for the curse to be dealt with.

We are no longer waiting for the serpent's head to be crushed.

We are able to gaze towards his salvation plan.

Because God is faithful in our rebelling.

Even in the midst of humanity's continued rebellion, God remains faithful.

As you scan the pages of Scripture, the reality of human brokenness and sin continues to infect and destroy his creation.

And we see him waving through each page his plan, his purpose to show and reveal his faithfulness.

In the face of our rebellion, we get to look and gaze upon his son Jesus Christ.

Consider Christ Jesus in the darkest moment of human history, in the most painful moment in human history.

Consider Christ Jesus in the face of those he created.

Consider Christ Jesus hung on the cross, the greatest evil humanity has ever displayed in that moment.

There is not a greater display of our rebellion than the cross.

Those who were created seeking to kill their creator.

And as Jesus hangs there, seeing the utter rebellion of those he created, those he is sustaining, he cries out, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.

Those words should ring in our ears with amazement and joy that though we continue to reveal our faithlessness, the Lord God in Christ Jesus declares himself to be faithful to us.

He declares his faithfulness towards his plan, his purpose in his creation.

Because Jesus did die, but as he conquered sin and death, he dealt the final blow.

Death could not hold him.

The serpent's head was dealt the fatal blow.

The Lord God, who throughout history declares his faithfulness, continues to display and reveal it while we wait.

Because there is a day coming when Jesus Christ will come to claim the prize for which he won.

Those who have known his faithfulness, those who have accepted his faithfulness, those who rely and depend daily on his faithfulness.

Because on that day death will be no more.

On that day all will see the faithfulness of God, and it will be undeniable.

So, brother, sister in Christ, wait knowing your Lord God is faithful.

Rejoice in the blessings you have and that are revealed in His faithfulness.

And cling, cling in your brokenness to his faithfulness.