Dear Church family,
I hope that you enjoyed worshipping the Lord yesterday and that God & His Word from Genesis 6:9-8:19 helped affirm the fact that you are in ‘same boat’ with Noah, and the boat is Christ through faith in Him. The key to understanding the flood narrative is understanding that Noah serves as a positive example for what His true Church should look like: faith in God marked by complete obedience and contrasting against the godless culture where we live.
Remember that the chiastic center of Noah’s narrative (6:9-9:29) is 8:1a when it says that “God remembered Noah…in the ark.” And the reason that God remembered Noah was because of his faith in God marked by obedience (Heb. 11:7), and this meant gracious salvation from judgement of sin on Noah and his family. And the reason that God will remember us is because He is gracious and that He sees faith in us, and our faith is in Jesus like Noah was in the boat.
Really, the center message of the whole Bible is about how God saves those who are ‘in Christ’ (which is the Apostle Paul’s favorite phrase for describing his relationship with Jesus). Though God judges all sin and all wickedness with perfect and complete justice, we’re not meant to focus on God’s punishment (we’re also not meant to ignore it!), but God highlights and emphasizes His gracious intervention to save a few, like Noah with his family, and us too, so that we focus on praising God for His grace.
And on the other side of Noah’s 1 year and 1 month boat ride was a whole new world (8:1b describes the new world being another act of our Creator, blowing His Spirit over the waters just like His first act of creation in 1:2). And the same will be true for us who are in Christ. We ride out the Tsunami waves of God’s judgement against our sin by remaining in Christ, our Ark Who touches the watery (or fiery) wrath of God in our place (as displayed on the Cross), thereby protecting us as we remain in Him, and leading us to rise above the world that is dead. And when God finally brings us through the door of death, He will create for us a renewed world called “a new heavens and new earth” (Ephesians 2:1-7 shows this doctrine).
Through and through, Noah’s flood is the greatest real-life depiction of what a Christians life and future looks like from beginning to end (Matt. 24:37). And I hope that this deeply resonates with you.
(1) Now I would like to add one piece of encouragement for those of you who feel the urge to allow your faith to slack on full obedience, as we saw Noah demonstrating, and even get caught in the whirl of this virulent world’s godless character.
The Holy Spirit applies the story of Noah to us in 2 Peter 2:5-9 –
“5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;…9then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,”
You faith in God, which includes obedience, does not completely depend on you, but it depends on God to keep you, which He will!
2 Peter is saying 2 things…(1) God is perfectly just. He will not let sin go overlooked. He will make sinners pay for our thoughts and actions as He did in the days of Noah.
(2) But God knows how to preserve His people who are His people by faith, and God knows how to continue to preserve you, like keep you as a Noah and make sure that you remain godly within the context of a malevolent world around you! God will not let you, if you are truly a Christian, ultimately get pulled under by the temptations of culture that would seduce you to minimize God’s Word and live according to merely what feels good. And praise the Lord for that!
And if there is one verse within the flood narrative that represents God’s preserving power in our life, to keep us in Christ like Noah being kept in the boat, it’s 7:16 which says, “and those that entered (the ark), male and female of all flesh, went in as God has commanded him. And the LORD shut him in.”
And the Lord will shut us into Christ, too, and make sure we remain in Him through every storm, every trial, and every situation that would “rock our boat.” But God will assure that we remain in Christ together! Let’s be like Noah’s family in the ark together, though we will be “in Christ” together.
And as we all remain in Christ together, let’s continue demonstrating real obedient faith like Noah, even to the cubit!
With love in Christ,
Aaron
