Faithful Then, Faithful Now | New Life - Genesis 8:20-9:29 (Dec 4) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

There we go.

Hey guys, so good to be together this morning.

Good morning.

Merry Christmas.

So good to sing the Lord's coming together and to praise his name.

We're so thankful you're here this morning.

If you're new with us, we want to just extend a warm welcome to you.

We'd love to meet you this morning.

So we've set up an area just for that purpose.

It's called Guest Reception.

It's a little table at the back of this back corner of this room.

And we'd love for you to stop there at the end of this service.

We want to put a small gift in your hands, answer any questions you might have about our church.

I'm going to be back there.

I'd love to meet you.

My name's Miles Holmes.

I'm the lead pastor here at Redemption New Market.

It's my joy here to serve here.

It'll be my joy to meet you this morning.

Also, I just want to remind you as we continue to worship the Lord of uh just to encourage you to continue to give to the Lord and to give to the work that He's doing in this church.

We're in the midst of a special offering right now, and we are raising uh funds to support some local causes, some local missions groups, as well as some uh international missions groups, and we're also raising money just to make up a small deficit we have in our budget.

So I'd encourage you to continue to give to the Lord.

I want to turn our attention and our minds to the Lord now, and I want to read for us as we turn to him in prayer, Jeremiah 31, verses 33 and 34.

Jeremiah 31:33

The prophet says, speaking of a future day, a day that we've experienced now, he says, For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.

I'll put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

No longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Church, let's pray together.

Father, we bow before you and we thank you.

God, that this prophecy that the prophet Jeremiah told, Lord, it's been fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Lord, you have made that covenant with us.

You have put in those who are here who have faith, you've put a new heart in us.

Lord, a heart that knows you, a heart that desires to do what we're doing right now, to sing your praise, to declare your glory.

A heart that has been formed for this very purpose, Lord, to sing of how great you are, to live a transformed life that reflects your glory and goodness.

And so, Lord, we thank you for this new heart.

We thank you that if we're in Christ, we are new creations, and that what Jeremiah said is true of us, Lord, that you have forgiven our iniquity, that you remember our sin no more.

Lord, you look at us despite our sinfulness, despite our wickedness, despite our brokenness, despite our weakness, despite our frailty.

God, you look at us and you do not remember our sin, but you see your own son, you see his righteousness, and you love us with the intensity that you love your own son.

And so, Father, I pray that you would find in this place right now hearts that are overflowing with worship and with gratitude and with love because of all that you have accomplished in sending Christ to be our righteousness and to pay our penalty and to be raised with new life.

So, God, we worship you now because you are worthy of worship.

And I pray that this would be the true cry of our hearts, God, to declare your righteousness and your worth.

And it's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Uh, there's a few privileges I get in serving this church here and getting to preach the gospel.

One is this window.

Do you guys see this window up here?

I get the privilege of seeing who gets to sit in the spotlight of this window every morning.

Has anyone put your hand up if you sat in the spotlight?

Uh, you need to know if you're in the spotlight of this window, that's an extra privilege, blessed place.

That's like the Shekinah glory of God shining in you.

And the nice thing is that it moves throughout the sermon, so we all get to experience it.

Uh, so if you get to experience it, you're extra blessed.

I felt the need to just maybe often, you know, I think about it in the service and it's not the right time.

And with this break with Joel expressing that, I just felt like as a family, we gotta address the elephant in the room, the beautiful window.

Um, if we ever get a church building, I'm gonna ask that we get to keep that.

And it's gonna be hung in my office.

And if you come and meet with me in my office, I'm gonna uh arrange it before you get there to make sure it's shining in you, the spotlights on you.

It's an amazing thing.

Well, that's one of the privileges I get to experience.

Another privilege that I get to experience as the pastor of this church is hearing the testimony of so many of you and so many different individuals.

I love testimonies.

And yet, as I think about testimonies, sometimes they end.

Have you ever watched a movie and you watch the whole movie and you think, okay, this movie's about to begin?

And you know, and you get 10 minutes into the movie and 15 minutes in your movie, you're trying to understand the plot, you think, okay, it's about to begin.

In fact, I just watched a movie.

I'm not going to mention what movie it was because I don't want you to waste your time with this movie, but I just watched a movie.

I was about an hour and 20 minutes in.

I thought this must be a long movie because it hasn't really begun yet.

I don't really get the plot.

And then the end credits rolled.

I realized I missed the whole movie.

I thought I was waiting for it to begin.

And as I think about our testimony, one of the things that I love is that we so often highlight the stories of amazing salvation that we experience.

The work that God has done in us to save us.

That's really the primary purpose of a testimony, isn't it?

To share of the good work that God has done for us in salvation.

But often what we find in testimonies is that the work of God's salvation is the whole story, and then there's one little sentence maybe ascribed to our sanctification, the rest of our life.

We describe a small moment with great detail, which is a great thing, but then when it comes to our sanctification, sometimes we kind of just like skip over that.

What we find in Noah is Noah has an amazing story of salvation.

An amazing testimony of salvation.

In fact, if anyone out of us were to experience the testimony of salvation that Noah experienced, being on a boat during a worldwide flood with all of the animals, I'm sure movies and documentaries would be filmed about us.

But what we find in Genesis 8, 20 to the end of chapter 9 is life after the flood.

What we find is Noah's testimony of sanctification.

Verses that we read this morning answer the question of what life is like after the flood.

And they answer the question for us of what our life is to be after God's work of salvation.

When God does a work of salvation in your life, when God calls you from darkness into light, the question that we need to answer is what now?

What is life supposed to look like now?

And it's a question we must answer because the reality is if we've experienced salvation, if we've experienced what Jeremiah talked about in that verse we read during prayer, this new heart, we're this new transformed being, life should look different.

The issue is that for many, the reality that they're a Christian doesn't really change anything in their life.

So that if you were to take Christ out of their life, perhaps the only thing that might change would be the way that they celebrate Easter or celebrate Christmas.

For others, life changes, but it never changes in any meaningful way.

Maybe they grow little bit and by little bit, but then after years, growth tapers off.

And what God's doing this morning is stopping us in our path and answering this question: what is life supposed to look like after the flood?

After this amazing work of salvation that God does in us, what is life to look like?

And so in Genesis 8.20, God is Noah stepped off of the boat onto dry land.

I want to read these verses with you.

From Genesis 8.20 to chapter 9, verse 28.

If you have your Bibles, you can follow along with me.

And if not, I can assure you that your neighbor is a very friendly person, would love to share with you as you follow along.

Genesis 8.20 says, Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

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 heart man's heart is evil from his youth, neither will I ever 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.

And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.

The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are delivered.

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.

And as I give you the green plants, I give you everything.

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

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.

And you be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth, and multiply it.

CHAPTER nine, verse eight says, Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, Behold, I establish my covenant with you, and all and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark, it is for every beast of the earth.

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.

God said, This is a 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.

And when I bring 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 water 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 flesh that is on earth.

Sons of Noah went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Ham was the father of Canaan.

These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.

Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.

He drank of the wine and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent.

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

Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it both on both their shoulders, and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father.

Their faces were turned backwards, and they did not see their father's nakedness.

When Noah awoke from his wine, and he knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.

He also said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.

May God enlarge Japheth.

Let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.

After the flood, Noah lived three hundred and fifty years.

All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died.

I want you to see three realities about our new life, life after salvation.

And the first thing I want you to see is that you've been given new life to express God's worship.

You ever thought about that question?

Why did God choose to save you?

Was there something special about you?

You can ask your spouse that after the service, and they may be able to answer that question for you.

Why did God save you?

The overwhelming answer of Scripture is that you were saved for the worship of God.

This is what the prophet Isaiah says in Isaiah 43, verse 7.

Isaiah 43:7

He describes God's people like this: everyone who is called by my name, who I created for my glory.

If you are a child of God, your heart has been repurposed for God's glory.

You are like my beloved car that I talk about so often.

You were once a 2004 Toyota Corolla.

You've been given a new engine, super revved for God's worship.

This is who you are.

Your heart's reformed.

Isaiah says again later on in Isaiah 43, describing the people of God.

He says, The people who I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.

Your purpose, the reason you're given a new heart, is so that you can know God and declare his praise.

You've been given a new purpose.

You've been saved for this very purpose to praise God's name.

And it's the very purpose that Noah gets to, as soon as he steps onto dry land, look what happens in verse 20.

It says that Noah built an altar to the Lord.

As soon as Noah steps onto dry land, his first work is to build an altar to the Lord.

It would be an altar of sacrifice.

It would be a place to praise God because of what he had just been delivered through, because of the work that God had done.

And so, church, this is my first question for you.

How often do you find yourself worshiping God for the work of salvation that he has done in your life?

This should be the constant praise of the Christian.

To think about the fact that that one time they walked in darkness, now they're walking in light.

This is why all throughout, you read it in the Psalms, you read it in the New Testament, the people of God are constantly thinking about that day that God saved them.

And constantly their heart is being filled with praise for God, this overwhelming worship of God, because God has done a work of salvation in their heart, and they recognize that things now are different.

Let me ask you this question.

Have you stopped thanking God for the work of salvation that He's done in your life?

When was the last time you can remember being overjoyed as you considered the fact that God had saved you?

That just like Noah had been delivered from judgment, so you too, as a child of God, had been delivered from judgment.

This is why when we gather together, we sing God's praise, because we want to do that corporately as a church.

We want to get together to declare this truth that as a church, these truths that we were singing about, we've all experienced it.

God saved us, He's called us from darkness to light, He's revealed who He is to us and saved us.

And so this is the very thing that Noah does as soon as he steps off the boat.

He builds an altar.

He looks back at the boat, he sees the dry ground, he's experienced what he just experienced going through the flood, and his overwhelming desire is to worship God because he has been delivered.

Now notice when he builds an altar to sacrifice animals on, and so it says in verse 20 that he took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

This teaches us something about the worship that we are to give God in light of the fact that we have been saved.

First thing it teaches us is that the worship that we give God is exclusive to God.

It's exclusive to God.

God is to be the primary worship of our heart.

Well, where do you get that in the text?

Look at what Noah does.

He takes some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird.

Think about that in your mind's eye for a moment.

What does Noah do?

In order to take some of every clean animal, I presume that Noah has to kill every clean animal.

I don't think he just kind of chopped off a toe.

I don't think he went to a bird and just chopped off a wing and said, we're just going to perform some amputation and give some of these things to the Lord.

What Noah does is he takes every clean animal, every clean bird, and sacrifices it to the Lord, so as to say, Lord, there's not enough that I could give you.

I cannot declare your praise enough for the work that you have done.

It's an exclusive worship, not just a Sunday morning worship, not just a small area of life worship, but a constant, exclusive worship that the people of God are to give to God.

But notice also what Noah gives in worship.

Let's ask this question: where did Noah get these clean animals?

Where did Noah get these clean birds to sacrifice?

The reality is that the only thing Noah can give in worship is the very thing that God has given to him.

It was God who brought these clean animals onto the boat, knowing that there would be a day that Noah would be called to sacrifice them on the altar for his worship and for his praise.

Church, do you know this?

The things that you have been given to worship the Lord are already in your possession.

God does not call you to sacrifice on the altar of his praise anything that you don't already have.

What God calls you to do is to give what is already yours.

I experienced this in a profound way at one time in our life.

We used to live in Barrie, and my wife she worked at a restaurant that it was an amazing restaurant, one of my favorite restaurants, and I would visit it pretty often.

And I would go when she was working sometimes with some friends, and I would make sure that I sat in her in her little section.

She really hated that, and I thought it was something that was really funny to do.

And so I would sit in her section, and then at the end of the night, the tips were structured so that any tip I gave her, she got all of it.

And so I could have a lot of fun with that.

I could tip her$1, she wouldn't care, I could tip her a hundred dollars, I could tip her a thousand dollars, knowing that at the end of the day, this is gonna come back to me.

That because we're married, that at the end of the night, this is gonna be my money.

And she can come home thinking she had a really encouraging night, got a lot of tips, only to realize that much of the money that was given to her was taken out of her own bank account.

This is the way that it works with the Lord.

What the Lord does is he gives you what is his and calls you to return it to him.

And so we can't give anything to the Lord that's not already his.

This changes the way that we offer ourselves to the Lord.

You see, the Lord has given you things to worship him with.

Well, what are they?

We talk about them often.

They're your time, your talents, and your treasures.

So that each of us have been given time on this world.

And the question is, what are you going to do with that time that God has given to you?

None of us are guaranteed any more of it.

God calls us to use our time to serve Him, to serve others, to be in His Word, to be worshiping Him, to be serving Him.

But not only that, God has also given you talents.

Each of you are gifted in unique ways.

Each of you are gifted in ways that no one else in this room is gifted in.

Do you know that?

You are an integral part of the church that God has called together here at Redemption New Market.

And God has called you to use your gifts, God has crafted you in a unique way that He has not crafted me, that He has not crafted the elders, that He has not crafted the staff, He has crafted you in a unique way to use your gifts and use your talents here.

And the question is, those talents, that way that God has made you, how are you using them for his praise and for his worship?

He's given them to you, he deserves them back from you.

The same is true of our treasures.

You know that you don't own a single penny, you don't own a single square inch of your house, you don't own a single vehicle that has not been given to you by the Lord.

This is what we need to recognize, the same thing that Job recognized, that all that we have is given by the Lord, and it was Job who said, Blessed is he who gives, blessed is he who takes away.

Nothing is yours.

All is Christ's.

And so the question is, how are you going to use the things that He has given to you to return it back to Him in praise?

The amazing thing is that as Noah worships God and offers these things to him, look at verse 21.

It says, the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma.

The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma.

The sacrifice that Noah gives to God is accepted by God.

God smells this aroma and it brings him great pleasure.

It brings God joy to see the sacrifice of Noah.

Church, this is a reality that we need to meditate on for a moment.

Do you know that your worship, the worship of your heart, can bring God great.

Pleasure.

When your heart is in a state of worship, when you bring your heart to bow before the Lord, in the same way that God looked at Noah and was pleased by his act of worship, so God looks at you and is pleased by your act of worship.

This needs to be the primary motivation of worshiping God.

This is why in my own life, whenever I calendar out my own time for personal devotions, I don't actually even call it personal devotions.

You know what I call it?

I call it personal worship.

And that's a helpful little tool for me because it reminds me what the primary purpose of that is.

It reminds me that when I wake up in the morning and I get my face in God's word and I bow my heart before God in prayer and I praise him and I confess my sin and I give thanks and I ask God to work in my life.

I am doing that as an act of worship.

I'm doing that primarily because God is worthy of praise.

In the same way as when I come here to worship with the saints, to sin under God's word, to hear God's word proclaimed, I'm doing that because God is worthy of me doing that.

He's worthy of praise.

He's worthy of the deepest worship of our hearts.

The problem I see is that in many ways, a culture of consumerism that we live in, the air of consumerism that we breathe, we can often bring to our relationship with God.

So that often as we read the Bible, what we ask is we ask, what am I going to get from this?

And that's good sometimes because sometimes we read the Bible, we walk away, and we get a lot.

Whether it's wisdom for the day or a word of encouragement that we needed to hear.

But there are times where we read the Bible and maybe we don't hear what we wanted to hear.

And the question for you in that moment is why are you doing it?

Why are you committing that time to the Lord?

Is it just for your own personal benefit, or is it because the Lord is worthy of that worship?

And when you bow your heart before him in that worship, he looks at you with great pleasure.

This should be the primary goal of our hearts, to have God smiling upon us.

And when we bring our worship to him, the reality is that he is pleased with it.

My heart needed to hear this truth this week.

I don't know about you, but the way that I kind of my default in relationship with God is to think that God could never be happy with a sinner like me.

And if you like that, where you know your own sin, you know what you could be and how you could be living for the Lord, and yet you know how you've actually lived this week.

You know the thoughts that you've had, you know the sin that you have committed, you know the struggles that you have, and you think God could never be pleased with someone like me.

And yet here's God staring at Noah, who, in just a few short verses, Noah is going to be drunk and naked in his tent.

And God is looking at the worship of this man and he is pleased by it.

Such a word of encouragement for us.

God is not waiting for your life to be perfect before he's pleased with you.

God is not waiting for your worship to be perfect before he's pleased with it.

When you bring your worship to the Lord, God is pleased.

It brings great joy to his heart.

This is the Father's heart.

That he accepts our praise with pleasure, with gladness.

And so we worship him because we can bring great pleasure to his heart through our worship.

This is our purpose.

This is why we're given new life is to express God's worship.

But the second thing I want you to see here is that we're given new life to execute God's mission.

We're given new life to execute God's mission.

And so in verse 21, we begin to see another theme that's come to the forefront in Genesis, and it's the theme of blessing and curse.

We've seen this all throughout Genesis, and you can really summarize the story by blessing and curse.

God's people are created in the garden, and they're blessed in the garden.

They're told to be fruitful and multiply.

But then that's shortly followed by curse.

Again, Adam and Eve are blessed in that after the fall they still have children, but then Cain and Abel are cursed.

And they're blessed with Seth in Seth's line of righteousness.

But then again, they're cursed, and the flood comes, and this constant wave of blessing and curse, highs and lows that we even to this day still experience in our life.

The people of God, whenever they experience blessing, it's always followed closely by curse.

But now in verse 21, they experience the blessing.

As the Lord says in his heart, look at it in verse 21 Never again will I curse the ground because of man.

In chapter 9, verse 1, it says, God blessed Noah and his sons.

Now, this is the question that I want to ask whenever I read about God's blessing.

The question that I want to ask whenever I read about God's blessing is, how do I live in a way that I can be blessed by God?

Can we be honest and say that if there is a way that we can live that is blessed by God, we want to live in that way.

If there's a path to walk on, and it's the path that God blesses, I want to be the man who walks on that path.

And so my question is then, what is the blessing that Noah experiences?

And we're told in chapter 9, verse 1, look at what the blessing is.

God blessed Noah and his sons, and he said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

The blessing that God gives to Noah is the blessing of being able to execute the same mission that God had given to Adam and Eve.

We've seen this theme come up time and time again.

The people of God have been on the very same mission since Genesis 1.

They are to be fruitful and multiply.

This was the plan of God.

He created the world, and then he put Adam and Eve, who were uniquely created by God, specially created by God, as image bearers.

And as image bearers, they were uniquely created to reflect the glory of God.

And then he told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, and his intention is that they would be fruitful and multiply until they covered the face of the earth.

All these image bearers whose lives reflected the glory of God, covering the face of the earth.

This was God's intention.

And yet, time and time again, as the brokenness of sin prevails over the plan and purposes of God, God commits himself again to the mission and commits his people again to the mission, calling Noah and his sons to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth.

I want you to notice that this is a theme that started in Genesis 1.

You know, often as we think about covenants and the covenants that God makes with humanity, we think that like God makes a covenant with Noah and He kind of like crumples up the old covenant as though it's like a horrible contract we got in with Rogers, and he crumples it up and he throws it in the garbage, puts it in the shredder.

He says, Okay, we're starting new.

Adam and Eve, they were a complete mess, but Noah, listen, you can do it.

But then Noah messes up, and so God crumples up that covenant, throws it in the garbage, and says, Okay, Abraham, you're my man.

You got this.

But then Abraham messes up, and so he crumples up that and he gets to Moses.

Moses, you can do it.

And it's like he keeps making these covenants.

This is how we can think about it, as though he keeps making these covenants until he finally gets to Jesus, the one who can do it.

But that's not the way that the covenants go together.

Instead, what God does as he makes covenants with his people is he builds on the previous covenant.

The covenants all progress.

And as we look at each covenant, what we see is that it lacked something integral.

And what we find here is that the covenant with Adam and Eve lacked something integral.

God had not promised to Adam and Eve that he wouldn't wipe out humanity with a flood.

And so in the covenant with Noah, what God does is he progresses his relationship with humanity.

He adds to the previous covenant.

But what you find if you trace a theme through Scripture is that just as Noah and his sons are participating in the same mission that Adam and Eve were called to participate in, so we as a church are participating in the same mission that Noah and his sons were called into.

Noah was called to be fruitful and multiply.

The plan was that the people of God would grow to cover the face of the earth until everyone on earth was a child of God, living, being formed for his glory.

So that when Jesus comes, isn't it interesting that the very last thing he says to his disciples is, go and make disciples.

Jesus is just as serious about multiplication as Noah and his sons were to be.

And Jesus says to his disciples, go and make disciples.

This is why I love that the mission of our church is to fulfill the Great Commission.

It's to see lost people saved, saved people matured, mature people multiplied.

Because all through Scripture, that has been God's plan for his people.

So how foolish would it be for the elders of this church to stand in front of this church and say, hey, listen, after 6,000, 8,000, however long humanity's been on this earth, I've got a new mission for you.

God's given me new revelation.

I've got a new direction for the church.

That would be foolish.

Instead, what we see as a church is that our mission has been the mission of God from the very beginning.

This is what God wants to do in his people.

He wants to use them to multiply his children until his children cover the face of the earth.

This is why Genesis is so relevant to us.

We look at the work that God's calling Noah to do, and we see that that work is still alive today in our church.

God's doing it here.

And so the blessing for us is the same as the blessing for Noah.

We get to participate in that mission of multiplying disciples for Christ.

Notice that it's a mission that God cares about that He gives to Noah.

And so what you find in verses 2 to 6 is that God is providing the means necessary for them to accomplish that mission.

It's really interesting that at the beginning of the flood, when God looked at the earth, what did he see?

Well, he saw that the earth was filled with violence.

You remember if you were here with us last week, we talked about violence was the opposite of God's mission, wasn't it?

Like if the mission is to be fruitful and multiply, then violence, ending life, is the very opposite of that mission.

And what God does in verses 2 to 6 is he makes sure that violence will no longer rule the day.

And so he's concerned with even the violence of animals and the harm they might do to humans.

And so he says in verse 2 that the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth.

He says in verse 5 that the life of human beings is so valuable that if a beast happens to kill a human, and you read of this in the law, then that beast's life will be required.

And so it is for humanity.

So it says in verse 6: Whoever sheds the blood of man, by the man, by man shall his blood be shed.

God cares about life because he cares about this mission that he's given the church to be fruitful and multiply.

And then in verses 8 to 17, God confirms his commitment to the mission.

And so he establishes the covenant with Noah.

You see that in verse 9.

He says, Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you.

God provides a sign, this covenant, the rainbow in the clouds.

A reminder that God will no longer judge all flesh as he did.

God blesses the people by calling them to execute his mission and he paves the way for their success.

God calls Noah and His sons to participate in the mission that he has already won.

Church, do you know that about the mission that God has called you to?

God has you on this earth for one purpose it's to go and make disciples of all nations.

All other things fall under that purpose.

It's the purpose that Jesus, if you're a disciple of Christ, it's the very purpose that Jesus gave to you, and it's the very reason he is waiting to return, that all the nations might be reached with the gospel.

It's your primary purpose.

Everything else falls under that purpose for you.

Whether it's your job, whether it's your family, whether it's your hobbies, whatever it is, falls under that purpose that Jesus has given to you to go and make disciples, to see lost people saved, to see saved people matured.

And the amazing reality is that Jesus has paved the way for it.

Just like Noah was set up for success, so we are set up for success.

That's why when Jesus is establishing the church with his disciples, he says to them, hey, even the gates of hell cannot stop the church.

It should be encouraging to us as a church.

Like Jesus has said, nothing is going to stop the mission.

You've never participated in an organization like that.

I remember growing up, I kept working at these jobs, and I don't know what it was, whether it was like I was the influence of these companies becoming like, you know, bad companies or something like that.

But every time I got to a job, whether it was like one time I worked at Zellers or I worked at McDonald's, I feel like I missed the glory days of that job.

You ever done that?

Like you get there, you talk to the staff, they're like, oh man, things used to be amazing here.

We used to sell out of every product, it was incredible.

Now we're really struggling.

And you're like, oh man, am I the problem?

Well, it's not like that with the church.

The church has promised that the glory days are ahead of us.

The church has promised that the path that you walk on as a church is a path that cannot be stopped.

The gates of hell cannot stop it.

That's why when Jesus speaks to his disciples in Matthew 9, verses 37 to 38, he describes the problem, the thing that may hinder us in our effort to make disciples, and this is what Jesus says.

Matthew 9:37–38

He says, the harvest is plentiful.

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Did you get the picture there?

What's the greatest hindrance?

What's the greatest hindrance to the mission that Christ has set you on?

It's not the harvest.

The reason why lost people are not being saved is not because there's no lost people, and not because God is unwilling to save lost people.

The reason why disciples aren't being matured is not because they cannot be matured.

The reason is because the laborers are few.

That's what God says.

The harvest is plentiful.

Do you believe that promise in your life?

Do you believe that the harvest is plentiful?

Do you believe that there are people that God has placed in your life that by your influence, that is the only way that they will ever hear the gospel?

And that God has, by His sovereignty, brought that person into your life for that very reason.

I believe God's doing it left, right, and center because I read these words and I hear the harvest is plentiful.

I hear the command, go and make disciples, and I hear the promise, the harvest is plentiful.

So then what's the problem?

The laborers are few.

The laborers are few.

The problem is that there are so few who are willing to walk on the path that Christ has called them to walk on, to be fruitful and multiply, to go and make disciples.

God's paved the way.

People are ready to hear the gospel.

People are ready to be matured.

The Great Commission is ready to be fulfilled.

And so the question is: do you honestly believe that God wants to use you to see lost people saved, to see saved people matured, to see mature people multiplied?

Well, you answer, maybe right now you're answering, yes, I want to be used in that work.

Well, what's some practical things that I can do?

Well, there are many, but let me just give you two practical things you can do in order to be a laborer in this harvest that Christ told us is plentiful.

The first is think right now of a person that you can share the gospel with.

This doesn't need to be like the most intricate explanation of the gospel you've ever given.

It can be something as simple as sharing your testimony with them, something as simple as inviting them to church, especially in this season where people are so willing to think about Christ during the season of Christmas.

That's one thing you can do is think of someone you can share the gospel with that God has placed in your life, likely already, who is ready to hear the gospel.

The second thing you can do is commit to discipleship.

Let me ask you this question: Who in your life are you influencing for their maturity?

Who is growing because of your influence in their life?

This is why I'm so excited about launching our small group ministry in January.

Because this is the ministry where we see discipleship happening, where we see the opportunity for you as a believer to take part in the Great Commission and commit yourself to growing a group of other believers.

To say, I want to do the work that Christ has called me to, I want to make disciples.

And so you show up on an evening and have the opportunity to speak the truth and love in the lives of other believers and grow them in Christ.

This is what our new life is to be all about, is to be, is to execute God's mission.

Execute God's mission.

But the third thing that I want you to see about our new life that we learn from the story of Noah and life after the flood, the third thing I want you to see is that we are given new life to experience God's blessing.

To experience God's blessing.

And Genesis 9 ends in a very interesting way, doesn't it?

Noah's been a hero this whole story.

We're told in Genesis 6 that he was one who was blameless among his contemporaries and that he walked with God.

And yet what we find in Genesis 9 is very opposite.

First, I want you to notice that in verses 18 and 19, they're experiencing the blessing that God said they would experience.

They were told to be fruitful and multiply, and what happens?

Well, the sons of Noah went forth from the ark.

Noah is fruitful, Noah is multiplying, and his sons are multiplying.

Not only that, Noah's being faithful to the commission that was originally given to Adam to be a worker and keeper of the garden, look at what happens in verse 20.

Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.

Noah was a successful farmer.

The only problem is that the same thing that caused Adam to fall.

For Adam, he was to work and keep the garden, but it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that led to him falling.

For Noah, he was to work and keep the garden.

And it was the vineyard that caused him to fall away from God.

And so it says, he drank the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.

Three practical conclusions I want you to draw from the story as we think about experiencing God's blessing and walking on the path that God blesses.

First, I want to draw from the life of Ham.

The story really isn't about Noah's sin.

Noah's sin isn't really described in great detail.

Moses never really even talks about it negatively.

The story is really about Ham's sinfulness.

I want to get to why that is in a moment.

But look what Ham does as Noah is drunk and laying naked in his tent, Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.

By the way, if you're looking for a great name for your next son, I think Ham is a perfect name.

I would love to do a baby dedication for a kid named Ham.

That'd be incredible.

But what does Ham do?

He comes in the tent and he sees the father's nakedness and he goes and tells his brothers outside, there's something really interesting happening here.

Do you remember what the serpent did when he went into the garden?

The thing that the serpent did when he went in the garden is work to expose Adam's nakedness.

That's how Genesis 2 ends.

Genesis 2 ends that Adam was in the garden, and Adam and Eve were naked without shame.

And then Genesis 3, bam, out of nowhere, the serpent comes out and he says, I'm gonna mess this up.

Serpent comes with this intention to expose Adam's nakedness.

And what Ham does is when he walks into the tent and sees the nakedness of his father, what he does is the very same thing the serpent does.

He exposes it.

What he should have done was the thing that his brothers did.

He should have covered it up.

He shouldn't have exposed the nakedness of his father.

Instead, he goes outside, he gossips.

He wants everyone to come and see the nakedness.

Of Noah.

He calls his brothers to come and see it.

And this is what Moses is showing us is that Ham is living as an enemy of God.

He's living as an enemy of God.

Why is Ham cursed and Noah not cursed?

Because Ham is living in the line of the serpent.

Remember, in Genesis, there's two lines.

There's the godly line of God's chosen people that carries through Seth to Noah and through Noah to his sons, Shem and Japheth.

And then there is the evil line of the serpent that is carried through Cain and now is being picked up by Ham.

Ham chooses to be an enemy of God.

The first thing you need to do if you want to experience God's blessing is turn from your enmity with God.

See, the Bible says that if you are not in Christ, you are walking as an enemy of Him.

There is no in between.

You are either a child of God or you are against His purposes.

Now we hear that word enmity and we think about like an enemy in like a maybe a movie where it's very clear that they're evil.

And I want you to recognize that you can be a really morally, comparatively to other people, you can be a morally good people and yet still live as an enemy of God because instead of living Christ's for Christ's purpose, instead of building the kingdom of God as an enemy of God, what you do is you build your own kingdom.

You oppose yourself to God's kingdom.

And this is exactly what Ham does by exposing the nakedness of his father.

He exposes or he opposes God's plan.

And the first thing you need to do if you want to experience God's blessing is turn from your sinfulness.

Turn from your desire to be an enemy of God, desire to be a child of God.

The second thing you need to do is commit to God's ways.

So this is what we see Shem and Japheth do.

Shem and Japheth become the chosen line of God to carry on the godly line of Adam, the godly line of Seth, the godly line of Noah.

And notice what they do.

They're committed to God's mission.

They cover the nakedness of their father.

Then Shem and Japh took the garment, and you get the picture that they're walking into the tent, so careful to do God's will, so careful to obey God and honor God in this situation that they find themselves.

They walk backwards and cover the nakedness of their father.

Their faces turn backwards so that they did not see it.

Because of the way that Ham lives in his enmity with God, he experiences and his family through Canaan experience curse.

But because of the way that Japheth and Shem live, they experience blessing.

So that Noah, when he wakes up, curses Ham and brings blessing to the Lord because of Shem and brings blessing to Japheth.

Calls for them to be blessed.

And you need to know that the path of blessing for you is in committing your way to the Lord.

This is how you pursue the life of blessing.

This is why you aim to walk in paths of righteousness.

It has nothing to do with your salvation.

You can't be saved by your own righteousness.

But as a Christian, you need to be very serious about righteousness and obedience because this is the path of blessing.

As a follower of Christ, you're saying, my greatest joy is in doing the things that God has called me to do.

You found the pearl of great price.

It's in living in obedience to Jesus Christ.

And so you turn from your sinfulness and you commit your ways to the Lord.

And the last thing you need to do if you're going to experience God's blessing is trust in Christ.

Here's my question as we close our time in this text.

Where's Christ?

Where's Christ?

I see Christ all throughout this passage.

And this is what we see in the New Testament.

All these shadows of Christ, but they're shadows in the sense that they are not Christ because they always fall short.

You see Christ in the offering that Noah gives on the altar.

Noah gives a part of every clean bird and every clean animal and sacrifices it on the Lord, or on the altar.

And when the Lord smells it, he smells a pleasing aroma.

And yet we know that the sacrifice was not enough.

That it could cover past sin, but it was not enough to cover future sin.

And what you find in Christ is that he is the sacrifice.

And that when God looks upon the sacrifice of Christ, he smells an aroma that is pleasing to him.

That's why when God looks at your life, he looks at you with great pleasure because he sees the payment that his son made for your sin.

Because Christ is the sacrifice.

I want you to see that Christ is also the rainbow.

Isn't it interesting when we think about the rainbow that God gave to Noah as a sign?

We often think about us looking at it and being reminded.

But in this passage, it's not us that look at the rainbow, it's God who looks at the rainbow.

That's why in verse 15 of chapter 9, God says, I will remember my covenant that is with, that is between me and you and every living creature and all the waters, and never destroy all flesh.

When the bow is in the clouds, he says, I will see it, and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.

Do you recognize that when you sin and God looks at your life, he doesn't see your sin.

Instead, he sees the payment of his son for that sin.

God knows your sin, but it's already stamped with the stamp of paid.

Your sin is paid for in full.

And just as he looked at the rainbow and said, I'll never judge humanity again, so he looks to the cross and says, I will never require payment for that sin.

It's already been paid.

Last place that I see Christ in this text is in Shem and Japheth, who cover Noah's nakedness.

So then Moses never really has anything even negative to say about Noah's nakedness.

And why is that?

Because as a child of God, your sin is atoned for in Christ.

Your sin is paid for.

The sin of Noah had been covered.

And in the same way, your sin has been covered by Christ.

So that when God looks at you, despite the nakedness of your soul being sinful, broken, he sees that you're covered by the righteousness, the righteous robes of Christ.

It's the work that God has always done to cover us in Christ.

It's the work that he did for Adam and Eve.

When Adam and Eve found themselves naked and ashamed before God, God sacrificed an animal and covered them with robes.

It's a work that he did through Shem and Japheth with Noah to cover Noah's nakedness.

And it is a work that he has done for you and for me in Christ.

When Christ came on the cross to live a perfectly righteous life and to die the death that we needed to die so that we could be covered in his life.

Church, let's pray together.

Father, God, thank you for Christ.

And Lord, we declare that it is in him alone that we can have life.

And God, I know how prone I am in my own heart to lean on my own righteousness, to think that I might be able to save myself, to think that depending on how, Lord, I'm living and how obedient I am is or changing your opinion of me.

God, I give you praise that when it comes to our salvation, Lord, the penalty has been paid in full by Jesus Christ.

That as God looks on us, he sees his own Son, Jesus Christ.

He sees that we are in him.

And God, I pray that in response to that, our hearts would overflow with praise for the work that you have done for us, a work that you did for Adam and Eve to cover their sin, a work that you did for Noah to cover his nakedness, and a work that you've done for those of us who are in Christ in covering our sin and giving us the righteousness, righteous robes of Christ.

And so, God, we give you all the praise.

And we sing this to praise your name.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Let's stand and worship the King.

Praise God that if you are in Christ, you are covered in his righteousness.

You stand in his power before a God who looks at you with great love.

If you're new with here, you're new here, we want to meet you.

And so we've set up that area.

We'd love to meet you after the service.

And if you're interested in serving families in our community through Angel Tree, Joel's going to be at the table in the back room.

Would love to connect with you before you leave the service.

Go quickly, I think, because there's few spots.

Church, know that you are loved.