Through the Water

is just to get us rolling. So I said you hear the word of God. Noah was 600 years old when the flood waters came upon the earth and Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons wise went with him into the ark to escape the waters of the flood of the clean animals and of the animals that are not clean and of the birds and everything that creeps on the ground to and to male and female went into the ark with Noah as God commanded Noah and after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth and the 600th year of Noah's life in the second month on the 17th day of the month on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of heavens of the heavens were open and rain fell upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights. So let it pray. Father I pray that as we just look at your words tonight as we consider Genesis again that you would just open our eyes to see where in fact the gospel is in the middle of all this and it might that we might be encouraged by it. In Christ's name we pray these things. Amen. Amen. Well as I said we're looking at Genesis 7 9 through 17. If you haven't been here we're looking at Genesis. You need to know a little bit of the background and basically what is the purpose of the book of Genesis. If you've not been here the purpose of the book of Genesis is pretty simple. It was to remind Israel and us of this thing we call the gospel and for Israel the gospel would have been different than it is for us but not completely different right in Israel. If you were in Israel I think you were in bondage and slavery in Egypt. Basically the gospel to you would have been God coming and promising you two things or one thing that had two aspects to it and that promise was I will deliver you from Egypt your bondage and your slavery and I promise you I'm going to finish the job. If you're familiar with the Bible at all Israel had several problems with the second part of the promise. They didn't really believe it. Instead of believing that part of the promise they complained and every time they sort of complained to God out of line God told them to take another lap around the desert. If you've ever played football just take another lap you open your mouth take another lap they did that for 40 years and basically God kept them in the desert for 40 years someone I was talking to the parking lot the other day I forget her they said man he kept them out there to all the complainers died didn't he? Apparently he did and so that was the gospel to them and the question is did they believe that he's going to finish the job well the gospel for you and I in large part is much the same. The God comes to us and he promises I will deliver you from your bondage and your slavery to sin and I will do it in and through the person of my son Jesus and not only will I deliver you from your sin but I promise you I'm going to finish the job remember Philippians once is he who began a good work and you will be faithful to complete it and the problem that you and I have and almost every aspect of our life is what we really don't believe God's going to finish the job. Do you? How did change your life if you really knew that every situation that God's in control and he's going to finish things here and he's okay well our lives will be completely different and since we live in a fallen world we need reminders of the fact that God is is going to finish the job he has delivered us and he will keep delivering us and when you read the book of Genesis that's what you see especially when you read the the story of Noah and the flood because the story of Noah and the flood think about if you're reading this story and you're in Israel remember that I think Moses probably wrote this story to Israel as shortly after they left Israel they they are left Egypt they'd left Egypt and they're making their way to the promised land they're starting to complain and Moses as I need to remind them of their history I need to remind them of what God's doing and now imagine you're in Israelite and you're hearing the story of basically someone being plucked out of an evil empire by grace and and you being delivered through flood of water but all the rest of the evil people around you were being were killed by that same flood you think that would have rung a bell with them it would have because the made one of the major parts of their story remember as they fled from Egypt Pharaoh pursued them and they passed through the water they passed through the red sea safe and unharmed was it because they were so good no we know it wasn't we read in Deuteronomy seven a while back he God chose Israel not because they were the greatest of people but because they were the least so God delivered them through the water in order to save them and in the process Pharaoh evil Pharaoh died does God deliver us through the water as well he does Peter would would seem to say that that when you were baptized into the faith the same thing that happened with Noah and the same thing that happened with Israel is happening you were being delivered through the water while others are not and that's not to say anything about them but the emphasis is on the fact that God has saved you your baptism is much like what happened with Noah so as we keep all that in mind as we look at all this tonight if you remember we talked about two seeds it's important as you go through Genesis but also if you go through the whole Bible the whole Bible is about these two seeds competing you know and a lot of people are very cynical about the world and basically they say that the evil seed is one and they're just waiting for the rapture and everything to end and other people say that well the the good seed the seed of the woman could never lose and so it's eventually going to to flourish and crush out the seed of the evil one in our lifetime and so they're sort of proud and what you see in the Bible is these two seeds are constantly sort of jockeying for position and what do I mean when I say the two seeds you had the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman as soon as Adam and Eve fell in the garden God came and basically cursed the serpent and he said to the woman he said your seed will crush his seed or your children will crush his children or your child will crush his child and his child will bruise your child's heel and so we saw that then at that point there's a seed of the serpent there's sort of good guys and bad guys throughout the whole Bible and I fewer here last week you saw this what were the seed of the serpent like they were exactly the same as the seed of the woman okay so there are children of the devil if you will and children ultimately of the woman who would be her offspring and what differentiates them nothing at this level they're both rebellious, recalcitrant, resistant and reproducing that's why God was going to flood the earth what differentiates the one from the other and the answer is simply this it's Jesus that ultimately some would come under the blood of Jesus some would be saved by Jesus and some would not and the only difference is what Jesus has done I don't know why that flipped and I don't know is there any way to make the screen smaller or spontaneity at work here if you can see God's covenant with Noah remember last week there was six elements I give you the first three tonight I'm going to talk about the last three so we had interconnection particularly familial inclusion preservation and the universal dimension and the covenant was gracious and character and if I don't know if I said it last week that God's dealings with humanity are always in covenants and the covenants are always unilateral what's that mean that means that God comes and says Tommy I get a deal for you I have a deal that you can refuse but if you refuse there's going to be consequences and if I said well God I don't want to be in it I don't want to be in a covenant with you I don't want to God really doesn't work that way Tommy I didn't ask if you wanted to be in covenant with me what I said is you are in covenant with me do the right thing you'll be blessed do the wrong thing and you'll be cursed and all humanity is in covenant with God either through Adam or through Jesus and then you see Noah God cutting this covenant with Noah has these six dimensions I'll review the first three real quickly says God bless Noah and his sons and said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and that's creation mandate we'll talk about in a second and then he said the fear and terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and into your hand they're given is to domain what theologians called dominion mandate that's in the first few verses of chapter nine so what's happening here if you if you're familiar with the Bible you remember when God created Adam and he if he told them be fruitful and multiply he also told them that they would be stewards of the whole world and so what you see in Noah is that Noah is being represented as a second Adam right Jesus is the last Adam Noah is being presented as a second Adam Noah you're gonna give rest there things are gonna start over with you and so you still have the same mandate is to be fruitful the multiply and fill the earth and to also be stewards of all of creation and that's your job as well at least if you're a Christian if you're a Christian your job is to do the same things to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth now the difference between then and now and the difference between Adam and Eve and now for them creating another believer with Adam and Eve meant simply procreating in it reproducing and now as you work your way forward we're also responsible for the same mandate but how do we produce produce people in the image of God with one we procreate as well naturally but also by sharing the gospel with people as well we see them renewed in the image of Christ and we are helping to fill the earth with the renewed image of God we have the same mandate that Noah had and also we have the same mandate to be good stewards now that manifests itself differently for different folks I realize that but either way we're supposed to be responsible with the environment with all of creation you know I love to give my kids a hard time we got the new Wii Resort game and Abby was telling me that you can do you can fly a plane through this whole island of this resort and she's telling me how the Wii program makes a big deal of saying the islands all the islands power is green power and that's fine I said you know for me I'd be on fossil fuel island but either way we are responsible to take care of things okay so that's that part but it's connected back without a particularity God's covenant with Noah is marked by absolute particularity in other words God chose Noah and nobody else from the mass of perdition if you remember before that's a from St. Augustin a mass of perdition I mean mass of perdition in other words all of humanity is just this like seeding mass of perdition and God plucked Noah out in other words in 1st 1670 says everyone else is getting what they deserve but you if you understand the gospel at all you you understand more and more that it is about grace that you and I if you if you trust Jesus you're not getting what you're deserved you're not better than other folks being a Christian doesn't make you better what it means is you you're not getting what you deserve you do you understand that do you realize that and you know it's always interesting when people in church at least if you're familiar with theology people you know argue about whether God chooses people or God doesn't choose people and the story of Noah it could not be more clear everyone was going to get it and then in Genesis 6.8 says but Noah found favorite with God and God plucks Noah out of this group of people but not just Noah and that's the next part of his covenant he includes his family since then the Lord said to Noah what did he say to him he said enter the ark who should enter the ark you and all your household and then why you and your all your household you alone have I seem to be righteous before me in other words he tells Noah a year whole household is to enter the ark because of your righteousness the covenant that I'm making with you they get to participate in the benefit of it now do they have to interact with God themselves do they have to respond to God on their own they certainly do and we'll see later on in Genesis that that at least one of his sons makes a very poor choice with Noah's catches his father naked if you haven't read it you might want to read ahead I added this slide about 10 minutes before the service because I thought you know I get the question all the time ultimately this has to do with infant baptism and if you're here this morning as well I explain why do we baptize children in our church and the reason we baptize children in our church is because in God's covenants he always includes families he works by way of families and children are not saved as a result of their parents faith but they are included in the covenant and eventually they have to respond to the God's covenant on their own and so here's the circle if you if you imagine that circle being God's covenant on the inside of the circle are people who believe on the outside of the circle are people who don't believe on the inside of the circle you have parents and children and on the outside of the circle you have parents and children it's as well people must make an essential decision to trust Jesus children of believers are not deciding to enter the circle but rather to stay in it in other words that's our view at least Presbyterian view of why we would baptize babies it has to do with this issue of covenant children when they get to a certain age are not deciding to enter that circle they're not going to walk in and say you know I'm going to trust Jesus now they decide whether or not they're going to walk out okay preservation well earth remains seed time and harvest and cold and heat summer and winter day and night shall not cease what God has promised Noah is cosmic government and this is one I remember one of my professors Richard Pratt used to point out over and over again he said this is one of the most important passages in the whole Bible and we forget it all the time in fact it never even comes to mind and what is it saying here in this covenant basically God is promising order to creation that you can count on the sun coming up in the morning you can count on the sun going down you can count on spring summer winter and fall most years out here

but in the really is order to creation there's 24 hours a day there's 365 days of the year there's all this order that we just take for granted and what if it just wasn't there all the sudden you can't even conceive of it and so if you're unemployed you're struggling with your job you're struggling with any number of things one thing you can look to and praise God for is just the order that is in creation that we take for granted the sun that shines outside and it's not just it's not just great that it's beautiful but that the sun shines and the sun feeds the plants and the plants produce oxygen this whole thing that is going on that we just take for granted God promises that he's going to keep things rolling like that so cosmic government the other thing you're going to see in Genesis 96 is human government whoever sheds man's blood by man his blood shall be shed for in the image of God he made man now the point I'm not making the point here about capital punishment people use this passage some in favor of capital punishment some say it's not talking about that the point here is that God not only promised cosmic government but that he promised he would give us human government as well and a lot of Christians struggle with that because on one hand we all we do is complain about our government on the other hand what's the the alternative is it anarchy the government is there in the in the book of Romans Paul says the government is there to do to do good to those who do good and to punish those who do evil the the government is a minute he who bears a sword against evil is a minister of God so as much as you struggle with the government you ought to be thankful for your government and Peter Paul they all say submit to the government pay your taxes because they come from God and if you're going to complain about your taxes just do it with your wife or your director of operations in my case the other thing about the covenant is universality God's covenant with no is not universal with respect to salvation but rather pertains to common grace benefit extended to all God said that he was not going to flood the earth again that means that everyone benefits from that whether they trust him or not and you see that in the book of Matthew we're basically yeah I went too quickly I don't know how to go backward in the book of Matthew we see basically Jesus says like your father in heaven causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust that whether you're a Christian or not you experience God's grace maybe not as saving grace but you experience his grace and the best thing is for last let's read some of these is God's gracious character let me read Genesis 9 9 through 17 and God said to Noah and his sons with him behold I established my covenant with you and you're offspring with you with every living creature that is with you the birds the livestock the every beast of the earth with you as many as came out of the ark for it is every beast of the earth I will 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 then God said this is the sign of the covenant that I'm making 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 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 and all flesh and the waters will never again become a flood to destroy all flesh when the bow is in the clouds I will see it and remember every my 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've established between me and all flesh that is on the earth so God says when I set my bow in the cloud then you can know that I'm going to remember the covenant my covenant not to destroy all flesh through water again what does he mean when he says says when I set my bow in the cloud for one thing the bow is a bow is in a bow and arrow he's not just pulling that out of the air he's not just making up something you know it would be cool to make this thing that's multicolored and call it a rainbow the language God is using is the language of war and he says when I hang my bow in the cloud you'll know you'll remember that I'm not going to do this again in other words the bow is hanging now that God's anger has been has been appeased and now the bow is hanging there and the other thing is I want you to notice where the bow is pointed they got hangs this bow and the clouds and the bow doesn't the bow isn't upside down in other words this bow isn't constantly pointed towards us if you make one false move all I have to do is let go of the string and you are toast for one the bow is hung passively the other thing is it is pointing upward toward God many theologians would call this a self maledictory of the God is pointing the the bow towards himself and saying not only am I hanging the bow in the clouds to show you that I'm not going to flood the earth but I'm hanging the bow in the clouds that if I flood the earth may the bow shoot me not you you see when God's work is finished he gives us this sign to show us that it's finished and it's promise and when you look at the rainbow really the thing you ought to be thinking about is the cross of Jesus because at the cross of Jesus when you see the rainbow you realize that God's judgment has been completely appeased and in that sign we know that he will never bear it out again in that way and when you look at the cross you hear the same thing you know you see that the cross of Jesus you know that his wrath has been appeased and he's never going to carry it out on you and the question is have you trust him do you trust him and if you believe that what is difference does it make in your life think about that let me pray for us while I pray that you would you would just work in our hearts that you would teach us more and more of the gospel that you'd teach us more and more about Noah teaches more and more about Moses teaches more and more about all these fathers and mothers even of the faith that we might grow in the gospel in Christ's name we pray these things are men and are men