TEXT: Genesis 6:1-8
MESSAGE: A Reason For Hope
“‘Don’t you feel it? Don’t you have those moments of either foreboding or on-the-cusp elation where you can’t shake the sense that there must be something more?’” — Charles Taylor
“Through our disobedience to God, we have been alienated from God and his presence. So we now live “east of Eden.” We are away from the home we were given to live in. We are all prodigals now, and we are all in a far country. Yet however far away we go, there is always a longing for home that will not go away. We have been cut off, so there is always a homesickness that no other home can satisfy, a desire that no other satisfaction can fulfill…”
― Os Guinness
What’s the setting for the story of Noah? (1. An enchanted world 2. A violent humanity 3. A righteous God)
- An enchanted world (v. 1-4)
“When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.”
“Do not attempt to water Christianity down. There must be no pretense that you can have it with the Supernatural left out. So far as I can see Christianity is precisely the one religion from which the miraculous cannot be separated. You must frankly argue for supernaturalism from the very outset.” — C. S. Lewis
- A violent humanity (v. 5)
“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
“Your point to them–we should not retaliate? Why not? [Because God doesn’t judge?] I say–the only means of prohibiting violence by us is to insist that violence is only legitimate when it comes from God…Violence thrives today, secretly nourished by the belief that God refuses to take the sword.” — Miraslov Volf
- A righteous God (v. 6-8)
“And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”
“He (God) didn’t need us, but once he made us, he knit his heart to us.” — Timothy Keller
“Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11 ESV)
“…the tears of God are the meaning of history. If you don’t see God suffering for our sins, you don’t know what history is all about.” — Nicholas Wolterstorff
TAKEAWAYS: What can we learn from today’s text?
*Take seriously God’s Holiness
*Start with God’s grace
“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” – Jerry Bridges
*See God’s heart