Noah - God isn't Done

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Well, good morning.

We uh we we really are blessed to have such an incredible group of high school students here.

I like to brag on them a lot.

Um, I love them a lot.

And uh what they talked about there at the end of that, on top of just Wednesday nights and all the great stuff that happens on Wednesdays, is we have this big road trip that we take every summer.

Our high school group has gone up to Gatlinburg, Tennessee for the last five years or so, and God shows up in this incredible way every year.

We have a lot of fun, a lot of crazy things happen.

I get lost every single year with 15 kids.

Every year without fail, I don't even leave the driving anymore.

I'm like, you guys go, we'll get there eventually.

Um but but but God shows up.

And to the point where we've had to convince our high school students that he doesn't live in Gatlinburg, Tennessee because it's so powerful.

I mean, he lives there and everywhere, but uh but that's coming up in June, June 9th through the 12th.

We have another trip, and I wanted to share that because if you have a high school student or if you are a high school student, even if you're not involved on Wednesday nights and you haven't you haven't tried that out yet, you think about coming on this trip because you will have the time of your life.

You will make some of the best friends you've ever had.

Uh, and we have some spaces on the trip right now.

And so at the Connect Desk, once we're done, uh you'll see a sign that says high school road trip.

Just head over there and you can get information.

You can get a packet as a parent will answer all your questions.

Uh it's it's an amazing, amazing experience.

We hope as many of you can go as possible.

Um, also at the Connect Desk, you'll find the ability to sign up for any of our teams or join one of our small groups, get some information about small groups.

You saw from the high school students, one of the things we we want here is we want to be close.

We want to be a family, we want to know each other.

And uh and that's important.

And small groups are where that happens for us as a whole church.

And so head over to the Connect Desk to get some information there as well.

I want to say a big thank you to everyone for helping us financially.

God's doing a lot with it in this community, and uh, and we also need it here.

You may have seen some buckets around.

We have uh we have a roof, and uh, like all of our roofs, sometimes it leaks.

This one leaks a little more than than others.

Um, and so you know, it's just one of those good reminders for us as a church to know that we are blessed to have a facility like this.

Um, and sometimes I wish that God would just, you know, put this protective bubble over it and that it wouldn't break down over time.

We wouldn't have issues like that.

But he hasn't.

And it's it's a good thing to be reminded that uh that when we're contributing, we're helping out with so many things.

And then we're also doing something as simple as, you know, keeping a roof over our heads.

Um well, man, let's uh let's let's pray and let's talk about what we're gonna talk about this morning.

Jesus, thank you so much for your love.

We are unworthy.

I'm unworthy.

I'll speak for myself.

I'm unworthy, Jesus.

Uh and I'm I'm blown away that you love me.

God, we pray that you would speak through your word this morning, that you would share what it is that that you want to share to our hearts, and that we, as your people, as your family, as your church, we would just be receptive to what it is you have to share, Lord.

And we pray this in your name.

Amen.

Well, last Sunday we started talking through the story of Noah.

We actually didn't start talking about the details of Noah, we just started talking about why we're talking about Noah, which seems a little silly from this perspective, but I think it was important.

Uh part of why we're talking about Noah is because on March 28th, there is a movie coming out uh called, wait for this, Noah.

You can see how how the dots have been connected.

It's it's a very nuanced thing.

Uh, but this movie coming out is kind of a big deal in the sense that our culture is giving a lot of attention to God.

And it seems about every 10 years or so there will be some something in pop culture where people's attention is more on God or on the Bible or something like that than it usually is.

And it's always an interesting thing because there will be people that will be offended.

And sometimes, a lot of the times, religious people are the easiest people to offend out there.

There's a song that we actually sing every once in a while here by casting crowns, and there's a line in it that says, Everyone knows no one knows what we're for, only what we're against.

And unfortunately that can be true.

And so it's a question we have to answer of, hey, when when our culture gives attention to God, do we worry about what they get right or wrong?

Or do we see, do we see the opportunity?

Do we see the good?

And we believe as a church that our focus is on what's good.

If there's good, find it.

That's another way to say Philippians 4:8.

Philippians 4:8

And so we're not called to be religious nitpickers, we're called to see any good that there is in people and any good that there is in our culture and to give our attention to that first.

Because it's not the culture we live in that informs people about Jesus, it's us.

That's what Jesus said when he said, You're the light of the world.

He said, Hey, it's your reaction, it's your actions that will inform this world about who I am.

And so it's important for us to know how do we respond.

And the truth is we respond in love.

And we see the good, and we focus on that first because that's what Jesus does with us.

Always.

And on the flip side, it just gives us a great excuse as a church to spend a few weeks talking about the story of Noah.

Because this is one of the most interesting and memorable and frankly challenging stories in all of Scripture.

And so we have a few weeks to go through it.

Now, we could start anywhere.

In fact, there's so many directions that we could go with this story, it's kind of ridiculous.

I was thinking about that this week.

We could talk about all the scientific stuff.

If you're someone that's into that, there is so much incredible stuff out there about the evidence of the flood scientifically and things like that.

You know, people lived hundreds of years according to the Bible in this time.

And is that scientifically possible and how does all that work?

We could talk about the history.

Every single culture on this earth, no matter how isolated that culture has been, has a flood story.

That's really interesting.

We could talk about that.

If you're someone that is really into that kind of stuff, to the history, the science, you know, come talk to me, I'll give you some great resources.

Or you can use this amazing thing called Google and you just type it in and it's there.

It's there.

Just as a side note, if it's a if it's a religious site that looks like it was designed in 1992, sometimes those are hit or miss, but it's out there.

It's out there.

But I think the most important thing for us to start with, I think the place we need to begin, if we're gonna go through the story of Noah, is is the thing that most people get hung up on.

And it's God's decision to flood the entire earth.

God's decision to flood the earth, God's decision to destroy the world, a lot of people get hung up there.

And so we go, hey, hold on a second.

That seems pretty harsh, right?

That's a a big decision, and and how does that mesh with Jesus?

How does that fit with Jesus, who tells us that it's God's will that no one should perish, but that everyone should have eternal life?

That seems so different than God, like like we see in the story of the flood, where he decides to have virtually everyone perish.

And so we look at things like that and we see a disconnect, and it can just seem so unloving.

So I want to start there this morning.

God's decision to flood the earth.

How is that the same God that we worship?

And the truth is that it is.

God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

He is absolutely the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

In fact, the Bible tells us in Hebrews 1:3 that the sun radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.

Hebrews 1:3

Jesus is God.

He is the clearest picture of God that we have ever seen.

He's the clearest picture of God we will ever see.

In fact, when we go to heaven, we're just gonna see Jesus.

We're gonna see God.

He is God.

If we want to know what God is like, what his character is like, what his personality is like, we look at Jesus.

Jesus is not God from the Old Testament in a good mood.

Okay.

That's how I saw God growing up.

No, he is God.

And that said, it's still difficult sometimes to look at some of these stories from the Old Testament and see that.

But I think what we'll find this morning is that the story of Noah and the flood, it is ultimately a story of mercy, it is ultimately a story of God's grace, and it's ultimately a story of God's self-sacrifice.

Of course, we could just say that, say, hey, this is a story of, this is a story of love, right?

This is a story of grace, and just gloss over the fact that the entire earth's population was destroyed by a flood.

A lot of people see the story of the flood as a purely judgmental story.

It's a story of God's judgment, and there's a big reason why is that it is a story of God's judgment.

And so I think we have to start there.

We have to look at that and say, hey, what is this about?

And the truth is this it's very simple.

God is a judge.

He does judge this world, he judges everything in it, he judges everyone on it.

In 2 Timothy 4 1, Paul wrote, I solemnly urge you, in the presence of God in Christ Jesus, who will someday judge the living and the dead, when he appears to set up his kingdom.

Jesus spoke often of a coming judgment at an appointed time that even he said he did not know.

And that can make us feel a little bit uneasy, but the good news is, as followers of Jesus, we don't have to worry about the end judgment.

We don't have to worry about that because we know in advance what our judgment is.

We are forgiven.

And I'm very personally relieved by that.

Because if I had to stand in front of God and get into heaven or get forgiveness or grace or mercy or favor based on the good that I've done, I would be in a lot of trouble.

All of us, all of us would, really, right?

We're all born with sin.

That's something the Bible teaches, that we are born with sin in our lives.

And we see that time and time again.

I don't know any parents that have ever had to pull their child aside and say, hey, if you think you're gonna get in trouble, just lie, get out of it.

You don't have to teach your children that.

That comes naturally, right?

Teaching them to tell the truth whenever they know they're going to get in trouble, that that goes against human nature.

And wouldn't it be awesome if our sin nature stayed confined to our childhood?

We can all look back on stories we have when we're kids and laugh about the things we did and oh yeah, we showed that we were selfish.

I am I am every bit as selfish at my core today as I was when I was a six-year-old.

Now I know God's working on it, and and I'm obviously growing, I should be if I have a relationship with Jesus, but there are times, more times than I like to admit, where I'm just as selfish.

In fact, uh, I talked a few times about this.

We recently moved into a new house.

It's a bigger house because our family's gotten bigger.

And bigger houses means more windows, which to my wife means more window treatments.

Uh there's more bedrooms, which have to be furnished all at once, right?

So that stuff gets expensive.

And a few weeks ago, I had a conversation with my wife, and I said, honey, I'm I hate to be the bad guy, but uh we need we need some fiscal responsibility.

We've got to hold off on all these decorations and all these furnishings because we just can't afford it.

We need to be financially wise.

There's one little problem with that, though, is that back in December, when when we were gonna be moving into a bigger house, I just realized that we needed a bigger TV.

And I mean, and uh I don't want my son's eyes to be damaged by squinting and having to look.

I mean, it's that would be so unloving.

And so I told her we need a bigger TV, and so we went to we went to Best Buy and some other places.

We ended up getting a bigger TV than I said we were even gonna get.

And so we uh she looked at me when I said we need to be physically responsible.

She said, Oh, hey, where where was all that financial wisdom, Dave Ramsey, whenever you bought that TV?

And I I did tell her, I said, honey, that that was for all of us.

That was for everyone.

I don't hear you complaining when the property brothers perfect stubble is in high definition on HD TV, okay?

All of all of the women in here know who the property brothers are, okay?

You just know who it is.

Don't pretend.

The problem with that though is that my wife also sees the curtains as is for everyone as well.

Uh the bad thing though is that she she agreed.

She said, All right, yeah, we can't afford this.

I mean, we did buy this TV, so I guess we don't have the money to buy all these other things.

So I'll hold off on what I want.

And every time I turn on the TV now, I feel a little bit of guilt.

A little bit.

But it is worth it every time.

I'll say that.

You know, joking aside, it's just the truth of the matter is this when it came to something I don't care about, window treatments, I don't care.

All of a sudden I'm like, no, we need to be financially wise.

When it comes to something I care about, something I like, I will find a way to explain it, to rationalize it, to convince myself that not only is it okay, but it is the right decision, and and it's it's a good thing.

It's it's for everyone.

That's sin nature inside of us.

And here's the thing with sin it's easy to laugh at, but it is destructive.

It's easy to laugh at, and we have to laugh at it in a way because we're we're all dealing with it all the time, but it is it is so serious.

Sin is it is cancer in our soul.

And sometimes we can look at God and we can look at his judgment and say, whoa, whoa, God, can't you just can't you just let it lie?

But he can't.

He's too good.

It's no different than a good doctor would look at a patient with cancer and say, I can't just let this lie, we have to deal with this.

God is so good that he has to deal with sin.

He has to.

And sometimes dealing with sin has to be serious.

And it has to be aggressive because sin is serious and sin is aggressive.

And we can look at stories in the Old Testament and see this very decisive judgment and go, whoa, whoa, that seems too harsh, that seems like too much.

But I think the place we have to start is asking ourselves, what is the sin that God is dealing with?

Because if if you're someone, we'll go back to that analogy of a doctor, if you're someone that doesn't know what cancer is, and you saw a doctor treating cancer aggressively, treating cancer with with chemotherapy, sometimes treating cancer with with surgery, surgically removing something, sometimes even a whole limb.

If you don't know how serious and how dangerous cancer is, you might say, Whoa, whoa, no, that's too much.

Pull back, what are you doing?

But we don't think like that because we know how dangerous cancer is.

We know what it'll do if left unchecked.

And so we see a doctor do that and we say, Yeah, whatever you have to do, I trust that.

We have to understand that sin is just as dangerous.

It is cancer in our souls.

So before we we look at the treatment that God uses in certain situations, we have to first look at uh at the sin that he's dealing with.

And I think we couldn't even imagine if we tried the level of evil that God is dealing with in the time of Noah.

This decision that he makes.

I mean, we'll go to uh to Genesis chapter six, for example.

This is when this whole thing starts.

It says the Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.

So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth.

It broke his heart.

Think about that for a second.

God's heart is broken.

And the Lord said, I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth, yes, and I will destroy every living thing, all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky.

I am sorry I ever made them.

And what kind of evil has to be present for God to have that kind of a response?

We see several examples in the Old Testament of God dealing very directly with sin.

For example, in Genesis 15, 16, God is speaking to Abraham about a time when his descendants are going to return to the promised land and they're gonna occupy it, but there's people there already.

There's a group of people called the Amorites.

And he says, After four generations, your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.

So he says, Hey, the Amorites, their evil hasn't yet reached a level that makes me compelled to surgically remove them from this earth.

Now, if you know anything about the Amorit culture, which I didn't until I started to kind of look into it a little bit this week, is it's it's mind-blowing how evil this group of people was.

Child sacrifice was a regular part of their worship to their pagan gods.

And God looks at that and he says, it's not yet at the level that requires their destruction.

Can you imagine how how evil a society would have to be for that to be a social norm?

We see God judge Sodom and Gomorrah.

And Abraham has an issue with God's judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah.

If you know anything about that culture, man, you want to talk about evil, violence, and rape.

These were normal behaviors in their society.

And so God says, I'm gonna remove, I'm gonna surgically remove Sodom and Gomorrah from the face of the earth.

And Abraham's like, No, God, you can't do that.

And he has some of the same questions that we would naturally have.

He says, God, what if there's 50 good people?

If there's 50 good people, are you gonna destroy the whole place?

And God says, No, for the sake of 50 people, I would save everyone.

So Abraham does what we would naturally do.

He's like, Well, what about 40?

What about 30?

Where's that line at?

What about what about 10?

We actually get there in chapter uh chapter 18, verse 32.

He says, Finally, Abraham said, Lord, please don't be angry with me if I speak one more time.

Suppose only 10 are found there.

And the Lord replied, Then I will not destroy it for the sake of the ten.

Even if there were only 10 people who were righteous, and by righteous we don't mean perfect.

We just mean ten people in an entire society that give any care at all about God and about living rightly.

That's it.

If there's ten, I will spare everyone.

What we see in the Old Testament is a God that's incredibly patient, a God that desires mercy.

He waited hundreds of years for the Amorites to turn around.

Because Sodom and Gomorrah, he says, Hey, I'm searching for a reason.

I'm searching for anything, ten people, anything, to give me a reason not to do this.

We see the God that we see talked about in Exodus 34.

It says, The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, Yahweh, the Lord, the God of compassion and mercy.

I am slow to anger and I'm filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.

That is who God is.

He is slow to anger.

But he's a God that is so good that he will not allow sin to run rampant and will not allow sin to infect and to destroy everything in his creation.

He just won't do it.

And here's the thing: if if people turn and change, that's his heart, that everyone would turn to him and know his love.

Then he's even willing to change his mind.

We see that in the story of Jonah.

Jonah was a prophet sent by God to a place called Nineveh to tell Nineveh that their evil ways were about to catch up with them.

Now, Nineveh, man, you talk about a you talk about a brutal place.

If you look into the history of Nineveh, their executions with the people that they viewed as enemies are among some of the most brutal and horrific things that have ever been done on the face of the earth.

You understand why Jonah is terrified to go there and why it does not even cross his mind that God could ever show them mercy.

And yet Jonah goes and he tells them, God is warning you to change.

And they change.

And here's what happens God changes his mind.

In Jonah 3 10, when God saw their deeds, they turned from their wicked way, and then God relented concerning the calamity which he had declared he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.

God is not easily angry.

Never has been.

It really is.

But he understands the seriousness of sin.

He understands its effects, he understands its dangers, and he is good.

A good God is a just God.

A good God has to look at that and do something about it for the sake, for the sake of all of humanity.

You know, as people, unless we're either God or someone God has put in authority as a judge, we are not to judge the sins of other people.

Mainly because we have enough to worry about in ourselves.

And Jesus encourages us to take a similar approach to sin in our lives in Matthew chapter 5, verse 29.

Matthew 5:29

He says, So if your eye, even your good eye, I don't know which good eye is mine, or the bad, whatever, causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away.

It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

And if your hand, even your stronger hand, causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.

It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

Jesus is saying, hey, sin is serious.

It spreads, it deepens, and it destroys.

And in our lives, we have to have the willingness to say, hey, this is something that's a big deal.

I've got to deal with this.

And I might have to deal with it aggressively.

I shared uh earlier, uh, I think it was last year, middle of the year, I shared that I had a 10-year-plus long addiction to pornography.

It's always fun to talk about.

And uh and I was so ashamed and so guilty for so long.

It took me a long time until we had our son actually uh to start really dealing with it aggressively.

I mean, I'd said I was struggling with it, I'd prayed about it, I'd gone to friends for accountability, I'd done all kinds of things.

It's something that a lot of guys struggle with, so I'd made excuses, you name it.

But it wasn't until then that I started to deal with it aggressively.

And I remember one day I'm sitting in this counselor's office, started to get counseling, that's when things kind of started to turn around.

And he just looks at me and says, Justin, do you need to have a computer?

And I'm like, Yeah, I'm an American.

Of course I need to have a computer.

I mean, I have to work on a computer, I have emails, I have all these things.

I can't, you can't go without a computer, it doesn't work.

And he's like, Well, that's not true.

Uh, you know, computer is a privilege.

And you're saying that this is something that you see as destroying your your marriage, it destroys your relationship with God and how you feel your relationship with God is.

God obviously loves me no matter what.

It destroys your ability to lead with confidence, destroys so many things, and and if If you're not willing to just get rid of a computer to help with that, you're not really dealing with it.

You know, cutting off your hands, so to speak.

If you're not willing to just lose something, you're not really dealing with this.

And so I went home that day and I lit my computer on fire.

I'm not sure I didn't do that.

Um what I did do was I went home and I talked to my wife.

And we uh we spent hours just locking my computer down to the point where, I mean, it's like like a children's toy that can only do a few certain things that the parents have allowed it to do.

It was something like that.

I mean, my wife had the administrator password, I couldn't add software.

We had software on there that that was accountability software to send emails to my wife.

I mean, this thing was locked down, even to the point where it was embarrassing at times.

Uh, I was actually sitting here with Steve one day, that's fun.

And and he's like, Justin, I need you to add this new software to your computer.

Uh, it's gonna help you do some stuff at work.

And I'm like, Well, I I can't.

He's like, no, no, here it is.

Just have it.

Like, no, you don't understand.

Uh, see, my wife has my password.

And and I called Megan, I said, honey, what's the password?

She's like, Oh, I forgot it.

I'm like, ah, you can't, no, don't do that.

I can't, I need this.

And, you know, and I ended up talking to Steve about it.

It was a great conversation.

But I look back at that addiction, and that's the moment that things started to turn around.

And God's good, I'm in recovery now, it's it's awesome, but but that's the moment I can look at and say, you know, it was, it was that moment where I was willing to cut something off.

That moment that I was willing to say, yeah, I can lose something, I can I can do something aggressive to have freedom and to start moving forward.

I can deal with my sin and deal with it aggressively.

That's when that addiction turned around for me.

So Jesus encourages us in our own lives to look at sin seriously and to deal with it.

And sometimes we might look at God in the Old Testament and say, no, it's it's too harsh, but it's interesting.

We see so many times in our society where someone has done something so heinous and we see the judgment passed down, and it's a harsh judgment, and everything within us knows that that is right.

So we have to understand when we're looking at the story of Noah and when we're looking at the flood, we're talking about an entire society, an entire population on the earth that is more wicked and evil than Nineveh, more wicked and evil than Sodom and Gomorrah, more wicked and evil than the Amorites, and those people, man, they were evil.

We see glimpses of that in our society today.

We see terrorists, we see child predators, we see those types of people, and we just, oh, that's so evil.

Imagine an entire earth's population like that.

In that situation, God says, I can't just, I can't just surgically remove.

I've got to start fresh.

I've got to completely scrap it.

And even still, even despite all that evil, what did it do?

It broke God's heart.

It broke his heart.

The story of Noah is a story about judgment.

It's a story about God's righteous judgment.

But if we only see it as that, if that's all we see in it, we're missing it.

Because, like I said earlier, this is a story about love, this is a story about mercy, and it is a story about God's self-sacrifice.

We just need a different perspective to see it.

It's amazing how many times in life something will happen that completely changes your perspective.

It's like a light bulb goes off, and you see things very differently.

I had that happen a few years ago.

Uh I was leading our youth group, and I had a mom that dropped her child off and had some concerns.

And so she asked one of our volunteers to talk to who was in charge.

They came and grabbed me, and I went over to talk to the mom, and she looked at me and right away said, I'm so sorry, but I really need to talk to an adult.

So I was 25 years old, and I'm not gonna lie, that stung a little bit, but I really just laughed it off, and I said, Oh, hey, I look young, that's funny.

Um, because I'm really 42, and so it now, but a few days later I went to talk to Steve about that, and I thought he'd get a big kick out of it.

He likes to laugh and laugh at me sometimes, and so I thought I'd tell him this story, and I told it to him, and he didn't laugh.

And he has a pretty good sense of humor.

I didn't know what was going on.

He just kind of sat there quietly, nodding his head, and then he said something, and it it shook me a little bit more than what the mom had said.

He said, You know, Justin, it would help you if you didn't dress like a teenager.

Oh, I know, right?

Now, here's the thing, it was in love, and it was completely accurate because at that time, 25 years old, I was just really focused on trying to get the high school kids to see me as cool.

I've given up on that.

And so, and so my my style of dress, my hairstyle, I had a faux hawk.

There's nothing wrong.

If you have a faux hawk this morning, I'm not trying to offend you.

If you don't know what a faux hawk is, it's the hairstyle every three-year-old in the bathtub makes where they just take their shampoo and go up like that.

It's like it's a natural hairstyle.

You know, all that I was doing, every shirt that I would buy, everything that I would do, it was all about trying to get the students to see me a certain way.

I never once thought about how it made me look to parents.

I never once had the thought of, hey, if I'm a parent of a child, I didn't have kids yet, so I didn't have this filter, but if I'm a parent of a child, maybe I want to leave them in the care of like a responsible adult or something.

Maybe.

Maybe I don't want to have to search the room to try to pick out who the adult is here and who the kids are.

And that changed my perspective entirely.

That's the day I let myself go.

And it's been so great.

I haven't shaved, I haven't gained so much weight, I stopped caring.

It's been wonderful.

No.

Slightly true.

But my perspective changed.

And what I found with God is that when it comes to these situations where I look at the Old Testament and I see God and I look at Jesus and I'm like, how is this the same?

What I found is it's not that the God of the Old Testament and Jesus are at odds.

It's that my perspective of the God of the Old Testament and Jesus are at odds.

And what needs to change is my perspective.

So what's the perspective shift in this story?

God showed me me one for myself, and I want to share it this morning.

Uh, as I was getting ready for this morning, it's it's in one more verse at the very end of that section of verses that we just read.

It says, The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, which we we know was extreme, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.

So the Lord was sorry that he had ever made them and put them on the earth.

It broke his heart, and the Lord said, I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth, yes, and I will destroy every living thing, all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky.

I'm sorry I ever made them.

But Noah found favor with the Lord.

I say this in full understanding of how this sounds, I just could not think of a better way to say it.

That is a very big but.

Okay?

With one T.

It's the only way I could think.

That last sentence changes everything in this story.

Because God decides to destroy everything.

Had he had he stayed with that thought, human history as we know it would have been done.

And then he gets to that last part, and he says, but Noah found favor with God, but God decided to save Noah.

And that decision to save Noah was a decision to save the entire human race through Noah and through his descendants.

It's the reason that you and I are here today.

And here's what's crazy about that here's where this mercy and self-sacrifice of God comes in.

We actually see this in another verse that also has a fairly large butt.

It says in Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

See, sin leads to death.

When God said to Adam and Eve in the garden, if you sin against me, if you eat this fruit that I've forbidden, you'll die.

He wasn't threatening them.

This was not like a parent saying to a child, if you do this, I'll spank you.

This was like a parent telling a child, if you touch that, it will burn you.

Sin leads to death, that's what it does.

So the flood was a justifiable outcome for the sin in that society and in that world.

Death was a justifiable outcome because sin leads to death.

And had God not saved Noah, if not for that, but God found favor with Noah and saved Noah, if not for that last part, sin would have been completely and forever dealt with.

Because God has to deal with sin.

The sin of all people would have been dealt with that day, the flood would have wiped it out.

Sin is done, it's taken care of, no more.

But by saving Noah, by preserving all of humanity, it means that sin hasn't been fully dealt with.

And because God is just, he knows that that means sin is going to have to be fully dealt with later, and that means Jesus.

And that means Jesus on the cross, dying in our place, fixing what we broke.

By deciding to rescue Noah and to rescue all of humanity because of that decision, God is saying, No, no, I'm gonna fully deal with sin myself.

I'm gonna save the full punishment of sin for myself.

I'm gonna take that on.

By saving Noah, God is sacrificing himself.

He's saving the full measure of sin's punishment for his son Jesus.

The people of Noah's time gave God every excuse to be done with humanity.

And he saved all the people through Noah, not because of their track record before.

And it's not because of our track record since.

You would think that he would just be done with people, but he's not.

He's not done with us.

If you're here this morning and you're discouraged, and you look at your life, you're like me, like I was in that time I was talking about a little bit ago, just go on, God, how many more days can you can you tolerate me praying for forgiveness?

How many more times can you stand it for me to go, God, I'm so sorry.

I promise I'm not gonna do this anymore, I'm gonna do my best.

How much more can you take?

You've got to be done with me.

How much longer till you're like, I'm finished?

God is not finished with us.

He's never finished with us.

The evil of the people of Noah's time was not enough for God to say, I'm done with them.

He's not finished.

He'll never be finished with you.

And here's the crazy thing: he he wasn't even done with the people of Noah's time after the flood.

This is this is kind of nuts.

In 1 Peter 3, 18 through 20, it says, Christ suffered for our sins once for all time.

He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God.

He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the spirit.

So he went and preached to the spirits in prison, those who disobeyed God long ago when God waited patiently while Noah was building the boat.

Only eight people were saved from drowning in that terrible flood.

Now I grew up in church my whole life.

I never heard anyone talk about that verse.

Mainly because I believe no one knew what to do with that.

We tend to put God in a box.

No matter what box you create for God, that verse does not fit in that box.

I mean, what's going on here?

People of Noah's time, Jesus is going to preach to them in prison, to their spirits, and they've already died.

He's done with them, he already judged them.

It's over, right?

Now, I'm not going to pretend like I can tell you the full meaning of this.

You won't find anyone on earth that will just agree on the full meaning of this, but uh, but I can see something pretty obvious here is that it appears Jesus has some unfinished business with the people of Noah's time.

And we don't know exactly what he said to them, but it goes a little bit further in 1 Peter 4.

Peter's talking about this whole concept of judgment.

He says, Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do.

So they slander you, but remember that they will have to face God, who will judge everyone, both living and the dead.

That is why the good news was preached to those who are now dead.

Now he's referencing the people of Noah's time again.

He just got done talking about them in the previous chapter.

That is why the good news was preached to those who are now dead.

So although they were destined to die like all people, they now live forever with God in the Spirit.

Even death, even the gates of hell itself could not keep Jesus from doing everything within his power to save.

That's our God.

That's our God.

There's no barrier that he is not willing to cross, there's no depth that he's not willing to go to save his people because he loves us.

He is never done with us.

This verse kind of gives new meaning, a very literal meaning.

It's one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible.

It's Romans 8:38.

Romans 8:38

He says, I'm convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love.

Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love.

If you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus, you have to.

You just have to.

Worship team, if you guys want to want to come back up, we'll pray.

I I am I am someone that is so happy and so blessed to know that God's not done with me.

Because there have been a lot of times in my life that I was done with me.

And to know that we have a God, that no matter our sin, no matter how he has to deal with our sin, to be a just God and a good God, that his judgment and his love go hand in hand.

The Bible actually says he loves those he disciplines.

So we don't have to, we don't have to fear God's judgment.

When I stand in front of God one day for that final judgment, all I'm gonna do is point to Jesus and say, Hey, I'm with him.

That's all I'm doing.

Okay?

That's all I can hope to do.

And that's all any of us can hope to do.

That's it.

Sin is dangerous, sin is real.

God's love is so much bigger.

Unfortunately, sometimes we hear God talked about when people are looking at the Old Testament and things like that, and they they pick and choose certain parts, but they they skip others.

For example, there's a verse that says, uh, I will I will pass the sins of the Father to the Son, even up to three or four generations.

I've heard that verse a lot growing up in church.

The very next verse says, I will, I will give my unfailing love and compassion and favor to the children of those who love me up to a thousand generations.

We compare God's love with his judgment, his love.

His love is powerful.

And then here's the the really cool thing.

If you know Jesus, Jesus has judged you.

If you know Jesus, he has judged you.

He's looked at you and made a judgment call, and he has said, Yes, I love you.

Yes, you're forgiven, yes, you're with me for all eternity.

I will never leave you, I will never forsake you, I'm with you always.

I I believe as the followers of Jesus, we should we should welcome God's judgment because his judgment is good and he loves us.

And it's final.

If you've never experienced that before, if you've never experienced what it's like to have Jesus look at you and say, Yes, you're forgiven.

Take that, take that step.

There's no ritual, there's no formula.

Pray with someone, talk with someone, but it's real.

And it's it's our only hope.

It's all we have.

Let's pray together.

Jesus, thank you so much for your love.

Lord, you know, it's just people, it can be tough sometimes for us to make sense of all the things that you do, and that's because you're God and we're not.

And I'm okay saying that you are sovereign, that you are the maker of life, the creator of life, and you have ultimate authority.

And God, we know, we know from Jesus, we know from how you treat us that you're good.

God, I just pray that you would open our eyes, all of our eyes, and our hearts the opportunity that we have to be judged by you and to be judged worthy of your love, even though we're not.

We need you, Jesus.

We love you.

We pray that you bless us this week.

Give us an amazing week together.

Amen.

Love you guys.

So we've got one more song if you got