Just as God had commanded him

 Read Genesis 6

This story has two themes.  Humankind rebelled against God and all that is Good and a remnant was faithful. There were a faithful few, at least there was Noah and God’s favor extended to Noah’s family.

The human heart sought after its own desires.  It sought self-gratification and relied on its own understanding.  Evil prevailed among the people of the world.

God decided to put an end to this evil that thrived upon the world.  He would bring an end to humankind and all over which he had given humans stewardship.  Both men and the lives of the creatures entrusted to him would be put to an end.

God saw the evil that had manifested itself in every human heart and was saddened at what his creation had become.

Noah was a bright spot in this dark world. 

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

God told Noah that he would bring a flood upon the earth.  Noah surely had no idea what  a flood was, but whatever it was it was coming and God told him to build a huge ship and stock it with provisions for all aboard.

All aboard would include animals as well—paired for the furtherance of the species. This would require a huge ship.  Noah couldn’t just hook up the trailer and get something at the Bass Pro Shop.  God told him to build this huge ship.

Most of us don’t use cubits in measuring things these days, so just how large was this cruise ship going to be?

The length was 510 feet.  That’s over one and one-half football fields in length.  Today, we see cruise ships that are 1000 feet long, but the ark was built from wood and without a modern shipyard.

The height was 50 feet.  That’s as tall as a modern 4 story house.  It only had 3 decks so these decks had high ceilings. 

The ship was almost twice as wide as it was tall.  By modern standards, it could have held 450 40-foot containers.  Today we see container ships that haul much more with containers stacked high above deck but imagine the storage capacity of this ancient ship that would be made only by human hands.

I have spent some time aboard ship and know a little more than the average bear about loading and unloading them for amphibious operations, including the supply and logistics behind them.  But I had never thought too much about those container ships.  I found that in 2020 it cost $1500 to ship one container from China to the United States.  It seems like a lot, but considering the time and distance, I guess it was the market price.  Today it cost $20,000 to ship the same container.  It’s no wonder the Dollar Tree is now the Dollar and a Quarter Tree.

We are reading Genesis 6 but the world economy is starting to look like Revelation 6—a pint of wheat for a day’s wage.  Let’s get back to the ark.

Modern estimates put the lumber used for construction at approximately 3.1 million board feet.  A board foot is a 1-foot by 1-foot by 1-inch piece of lumber.  To give you some perspective, 3.1 million board feet would mean you could lay lumber from here to Memphis, make a quick stop at Graceland, and have enough lumber to get out of the city on the east side.

And it had a huge door on it.  Most conceptualize a gangway sort of ramp that acted as a door.  What was not given by God was the mechanism that would be required to shut this huge door.  There was no introduction to hydraulics or mechanics or even pneumatic devices.  We will see how the door was closed in the next chapter.

It was the biggest ship of its time and perhaps still the biggest wooden ship ever built.  This was not only a huge ship. It was a huge undertaking.

God did not put out a ship-building contract among major shipbuilders and wait for the bids to come in. God told Noah what he was to do. This impossible task was all on Noah.

Imagine God telling us to do this today.  OK, the guys would get excited because they had a God-given excuse to buy loads of new tools, but eventually, the magnitude of the task would set in.

God is telling me to do the impossible

So, what was Noah’s response to being told to do what had never been done before and what might take 100 years? 

It had never rained.  Noah had never seen a flood. God told Noah to build this huge ship and fill it with every kind of animal and enough food for all on board.

What did Noah do?

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

There is a meme going around that reads Noah was a conspiracy theorist until it began to rain. Imagine the ridicule of the general population as Noah pursued what had to be a senseless, if not insane task.

Noah’s God—if there even was such a being—was surely just tormenting Noah.

C’mon man, walk away from the ship-building madness and enjoy life.  Come and gratify every desire of your human heart.  You are crazy to continue this madness.

That would have been the friendly banter, but surely there was something with hate and disdain for actions that went contrary to the narrative of the world. But Noah…

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

It is good that we see Noah’s faithfulness to God.  It’s good that we have this incredible story of a man who in spite of the many unknowns in what God commanded him to do, just did what God told him to do.

Today, very large undertakings are accompanied by an estimate of supportability.  Can we do what we need to do?  How much will it cost? What are the material and labor requirements?  What are the long lead time items? Will we have public support? What are the consequences of failure? What are the consequences of success?

But Noah…

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

It’s good to know the story.  We get more details in the chapters ahead, but are there lessons for us now?  Is there any insight for today?

The straightforward message is if God commands you to do something, then do it.  Just do it. You know the verse.  Trust in the Lord with all your heart…

If God commands you to do something of impossible magnitude, consider that you may have found favor with the Lord.  Perhaps we should see God’s favor when he asks the impossible of us.

Most of us won’t be called to ship-building, but we might be called to cook or teach or shepherd a group of believers.  We might be called to evangelism.  Some would rather build a ship from scratch than talk to their neighbors about the love of God.

Some may be called to witness to someone who is lost in the world.  We might be called to encourage other believers by our testimonies. 

You might be called to preach.  You might be called to be on a planning committee.  You might be called by the Spirit that lives within you to do something that is out of your comfort zone.

Your human nature might try to talk you out of it.

You do enough already.

Don’t fall for that.  It’s a trap.  The next thing you know you will be living fully for God.

You don’t have time.

Somebody else could do a better job.

Why me, Lord?

Is that really God speaking to me or is it those jalapenos from last night?

If God is calling you to do something, be Noah, not Moses.  Don’t try to talk God out of it.  Just do it, even if it is more than you think you can handle.

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

When you feel the Spirit within you calling you to something impossible—you know it is God’s Spirit because his sheep know his voice—then consider that you have found God’s favor in the impossible task set before you.

What does the impossible look like today?  God is calling you to do something that you can’t work into your day, but he has charged you to make it the most important thing in your day.

What will we do?

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

What will we do?

Are we ready to do everything just as God has commanded us?

Amen.

Hold My Beer

Read Genesis 6

Did you ever do something that you regretted?

Have you ever made a really, really big mistake and wished that you could take it back?

Have you ever been sick to your stomach and even to your inner being over something that you did?

I know some of you regret doing the horns down thing this year. Was this the wrong year for that!

I’m talking about serious stuff.

The first cruise that I went on was about 8 years ago. I was riding the bus back to where I parked my car.  The driver asked a couple young ladies seated near the front of the shuttle how their cruise was.  One of them said, “It was great.  I just can’t tell my boyfriend about parts of it.”

What a great cruise!  There’s some stuff that I regret.  What a contrast of emotions.  What a dichotomy.

Think about and God saw what he had made and called it very good in contrast to God was saddened that he had made humankind.

The creation was good—very good.  Humankind was set atop of this creation.  We were the crown of the creation, but we embraced sin and not God.

God was saddened.  He grieved.  He regretted.  Some translations say he repented of making mankind. 

This whole creation business, especially mankind, sure caught God off-guard. Or did it?

If God is truly all-knowing and all-seeing and beyond this physical universe that we know, he had to see this coming.  Right?

I would surely say, “Yes!”

God could see what was to come.  God could see man embracing sin.  God could see his regret at the same time he saw what he made was very good.

And yet, he created us anyway.

And yet, he created us in his image anyway.

And yet, he breathed life into us anyway.

God saw what he would make, how we would rebel, the consequences of our rebellion, our redemption, and the price required for our redemption, and he made us anyway.

God knew what was ahead of us and he made us anyway.  God knew that our rebellion and our relationship with sin would grieve his heart; yet he made us anyway.

What do we make of this?

Consider that you are so very valuable to God.  You are valuable to God not because your obedience was or will be perfect, but because you are his.  You are made in his image and likeness.  We are to become like him. We are not there yet.

The road that we take to get there is full of struggle and pain and hurt and broken hearts and the list goes on, but it is the road set before us.

It is a road that you can’t find on the map.

It is a road named by faith not sight.

It is a road that goes through the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

It is a road that God must have thought worthwhile for us to walk for he knew the price he would pay.

God knew ahead of time the cost of creating humankind.  He did it anyway.

Sometimes, we know ahead of time that if we do something, we are going to regret it.  So do we do it anyway?

If we know that we will regret something, we probably shouldn’t do it.  We should consider the cost of our decision for us and for others and for our relationship with God.

Most of the time, if we know we will regret something, we shouldn’t do it.

West of the Mississippi, there is a phrase for I know that I will regret this.  Do you know what it is?

Hold my beer.

So, if those hold my beer thoughts come to mind, you probably shouldn’t do what you are contemplating.

But if you do and if you have those regrets, if you grieve your decision, if you are lost in a world of I knew better and did it anyway; don’t give up.

God already factored in the hold my beer factor into his creation.  He preserved a remnant that would lead to the One who could redeem us all.

The better choice is not to do things that you know you will regret, but God has already factored in your bad decisions.  He still made a way for us to be redeemed and reconciled.  God’s heart has already ached for our sin; yet he made us anyway.

Yes, we will have trials and tribulations and suffering and temptation.  Some of these will come from our own poor decision-making.  We may be persecuted because of our good decisions to follow Jesus as Lord and be known as his disciples by our love.

But whether our decisions are good, bad, or too close to call; God has made a way for us to come home. God knew what we would do before our thoughts and actions were manifest in our lifetimes, and yet he continued with the very part of the creation that grieved him so.

You must really be worth something to God for him to still love you in spite of what you have done, I have done, or humankind has done throughout history.

God will not tolerate wickedness or rebellion, but he loves you.  His love is greater than our rebellion.  Let’s do our best not to do things that we will regret or will grieve God, but never forget that in the height of our rebellion, God still loved us more than we can comprehend.

Know the story of Noah, the flood, the destruction of the evil world that had developed, and that God found favor in Noah.  These are important to understanding our relationship with God.

But know with absolute certainty, that God loves you.  He knew what humankind would do and he knows how many hold my beer moments you have while you are on the earth, and he loves you.

Even though we break God’s heart, he loves us.

God is just.  He is righteous.  He will not tolerate sin.  He has wrath for the wicked, but know this:

God loves you.

Amen.

 

Covenant of Peace

Read Isaiah 54:9-10

We have spent a few weeks on God’s peace.  It is:

·       A peace that goes beyond our comprehension.

·       A peace that guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

·       A peace that comes from strength—from God’s strength so much more than our strength.

·       A peace unlike the peace the world seeks and holds on to with such futility.

·       A peace that is with us in times of trial and tribulation for we will have trouble in the world.

·       A peace that separates us from those who seek the things of this world.

·       A peace that reminds us that we are friends of God and not friends of the world.

·       A peace that let’s us fail and get back in our race of faith.

·       A peace that permits us to grow in God’s grace knowing that he will never leave nor forsake us.

·       A peace that has nothing to do with fear.  We fear only God and even then, we do not fear his punishment.

·       A peace that hungers for God’s word and his instruction, and yes, even his discipline.

·       A peace that is present even when we are working our tails off to please our Master.

·       A peace that assures us when we live out our God-given purpose.

·       A peace that the wicked cannot know for they rebel against God.

·       A peace that when we come into fullness in our relationship with God will cast out all fear.

·       A peace that is at home with power, love, and a sound mind because we have nothing to do with the fear of this world.

·       A peace that we know comes from the Lord and is entirely different from what the world seeks.

·       A peace that can only be a gift from God.

·       A peace that becomes unshakable the more we trust the Lord and not our own understanding.

·       A peace that is our sustaining diet.

These should sound familiar.  We have touched on each over the previous weeks.  You might recall a challenge that I gave you not too long ago.

If you have proclaimed Jesus as your Lord and Savior, are trying your best to be his disciple, and don’t have peace; look in the mirror.  See if fear or anxiety is trying to invade your peace.  If that’s the case, kick them to the curb.  They are not from God!

But, sometimes we have doubts.  We wonder if God’s peace can overcome what we have gotten ourselves into.  Could it be that I have turned the wrong way one too many times?  Am I still saved?  Why can’t I let this stuff go?  Why does God’s peace seem elusive?

Did God change his mind about me?  I know that God is love and he loves me, but maybe I don’t deserve his peace.  Maybe I deserve his anger.

But God tells us—the message was first for his chosen people—but it continues to us as disciples of his one and only Son:  I’ve been through this before.  It’s new to you, but I went through this with the generations up to Noah.  People fall short time and again but I am faithful.

There is some broad paraphrasing there, so let’s hear God’s words directly from the scripture in this 10^th verse.

“Though the mountains be shaken

    and the hills be removed,

yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken

    nor my covenant of peace be removed,”

    says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

The entire face of the earth might be transformed from mountains to flatlands, but two things will remain unchanged.  God’s unfailing love will never be eroded in any way.

And…  His covenant of peace will not be removed.  We have looked at the attributes of peace, the Benefactor of peace, and those things that invade our peace; but this is the first time that we have talked about a covenant of peace.

Covenant is an interesting word.  It is an agreement, but more than a normal agreement.  It binds the parties together.  Sometimes covenants involved meals together or the cutting of animals into halves.  The Old Testament word most often used is Berit.  When a covenant is given from God, it is a divine bonding.

We see God’s covenants put into effect as early as the 6^th chapter of Genesis and God makes a covenant with Noah.  Most of the time we think of God’s covenant with Abram who would later be called Abraham.  This covenant was for the patriarch and his offspring.

In Exodus, we see the heart of God’s covenant with his people.

“‘Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”

Here we see a covenant which is contingent on the people obeying God and his laws.  God did as he promised; yet the people fell short time and again.

In Jeremiah, we see the promise of a New Covenant.  That covenant has been realized.

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,

    “when I will make a new covenant

with the people of Israel

    and with the people of Judah.

 It will not be like the covenant

    I made with their ancestors

when I took them by the hand

    to lead them out of Egypt,

because they broke my covenant,

    though I was a husband to them,”

declares the Lord.

 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel

    after that time,” declares the Lord.

“I will put my law in their minds

    and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God,

    and they will be my people.

 No longer will they teach their neighbor,

    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’

because they will all know me,

    from the least of them to the greatest,”

declares the Lord.

“For I will forgive their wickedness

    and will remember their sins no more.”

Through Jesus Christ, we receive this bonding with God.  This is the reason we gather on Sunday mornings to worship.  This is the reason that every day we go into the world as God’s light and love.  This is the beginning of the good news.  This is the covenant that shows the glory of Jesus as far superior to that of the law.

Forgiveness that we did not deserve—grace—is ours when we profess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead.  This is the New Covenant and I’m thinking it has to be in the category of cool beans.

We did not deserve this, but we receive it not just as a fantastic gift but as a covenant of God.

God also has granted us a covenant of peace.  Salvation is fantastic.  Eternal life is beyond our comprehension but within our grasp as a covenant gift of God.  But peace in this life, is that even possible?

It is more than possible.  It is God’s promise.  Understand that we are not talking about peace with the world but peace with God.  Through the one-time divine sacrifice of Christ Jesus, God’s anger against us has been satisfied.  His wrath does not burn against us.

We live within his covenant of peace.

We can mess up our part of a covenant, but God is always faithful.  We can let worry and fear and doubt mess up what God has given so freely, but God will not take his peace away.

Do we grasp this?  God is always faithful.  His promise is peace to us.  We will have trouble in the world, but we may enjoy God’s peace concurrently.  It’s a promise.

If you are my age, not much older or younger, and you made a promise, only one word was needed:  Word.

Word.

That was as strong a commitment as you could make.  Word.  It didn’t require a handshake or a written document.  Word.  Especially among Marines.  The word was word.

I will be there.  Word.

You won’t be left behind.  Word.

I’ve got your back.  Word.

I know that I’ve lost the millennials here—could be a chronic condition for them, but God’s covenants are word!

And through Jesus Christ, we have received this covenant of peace.  Many of us have enjoyed God’s peace in many situations.  We testify that his peace goes beyond our understanding.  We affirm that his peace is different from what the world is trying to sell us.

We must know with certainty that God’s covenant of peace will not be withdrawn or removed or vacated.  He is faithful, even when we are not.

“Though the mountains be shaken

    and the hills be removed,

yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken

    nor my covenant of peace be removed,”

    says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

Why is it important that we understand that God has given us a covenant of peace?  Isn’t the fact that it is a gift from God enough?

God always provides more than enough.  We not only have a gift.  We have an irrevocable promise.

So, when peace is absent we must understand that God did not withdraw his peace from us.  He didn’t take it away.  We let something disrupt his peace.  Was it worry, fear, or doubt?  Was it reliance on our own understanding over trust in God.  Was it seeking the kingdom of the world over the kingdom of God?

For those who seek the one true God and have eyes to see and ears to hear that we come to him through Christ Jesus, God’s anger will never rest on us.  God’s wrath will not be poured out on us.

We have the promise of salvation.  We also have the promise of peace.  The question for us is will we trust that God’s peace is promised to us?  Will we trust him?

When our peace seems disrupted, will we set aside the things of the world that we have let in and trust God?  He has given us a covenant of peace.

Word!

Amen.