The Flood

 “The Flood: God’s Grace in Action”

Text: Genesis 5-9  // Series: Beginnings

Message @ JRCC – Sunday, Feb 6, 2011

Welcome here friends.  I want to invite you to take your seats and we’ll continue with our morning together.  As we begin our look into God’s Word this morning as we do weekly, I want to ask you a question…  How would you categorize the Bible?  I mean, if you go into Chapters, where would you expect to find it?  Perhaps it’s not a fair question as the Bible is really made up of 66 books with many different genres and themes.  So let’s take one book, the book we’ve been studying here in January and now it’s February already – wow!  So if you pulled Genesis, the book of Beginnings out of the Bible as a stand-alone book and you worked a Chapters and you had to file it or put in on a shelf somewhere, what section would you put it in?  How do you categorize Genesis?

• Children’s Stories? Like Aesop’s fables or Gulliver’s Travels?
• Religious Fiction? Cute, quaint Sunday School stuff?
• Historical Narrative?  How do you make sense of Genesis in light of other historical stories of origins?  We’ll see later on, the story of a flood is almost universal to all ancient cultures.  Is it history?
• Science textbook? We talked a bit about this in our discussions on Genesis 1 2 and 3 and in discussion on Faith and Science… 
• All, some or none of the above?
• Something else altogether?

And particularly when we come to the narrative that we’re going to look at this morning, How do you categorize Noah’s Ark?  Where does it go in your mental filing cabinet?  Under a nice story to tell kids about where rainbows come from?  Under the mythical legends tab?  Great stuff of movies like Evan Almighty but waaaay out of date for our day and time.  Well I’d like to suggest that the story that takes up 10% of the book of Genesis is a bit of a lynchpin in our  understanding of three key things: anthropology – this narrative is going to help us understand ourselves better; theology – this narrative is going to help us understand God better; and yes, history: it helps us understand our past and our future better.  Let’s pray as we dive in!

Title Slide – To begin this year, we’ve been studying in the book of beginnings, the first book of the Bible, Genesis.  So let me catch you up quickly on where we’ve been.  In Genesis 1 and 2, we explored the question of creation: how did it all get here?  And we learned that those three words in our series subtitle “history, mystery and theology” are important to categorizing Genesis.  Because there’s a lot that the author intends for us to know but there is also a lot that we would love to know but that we are not given information about.  Then, Pastor Keith reminded us of the pattern of rest and work that God modeled for us in Genesis 2 with the seventh day – a Sabbath, which teaches us to trust in God’s provision and care (a theme we’ll see again today).  But two weeks ago, when we came to Genesis 3, we began to see the emergence of a problem, really THE problem…  Humans, created by God in His image have chosen willful disobedience and rejected relationship so that brokenness and death now have entered the world.  And then last week, Andrew led us through the narrative of two brothers, Cain and Abel.  And we saw a picture of how bad it has become – the first murder and the first example of a person who gets tripped up by religiosity or religious ritual instead of true worship.  So we have paradise lost, the first life has been lost and now we come to a broad section that takes us from Chapter 5 – Chapter 10 (all of which I will now read –just kidding!).  But we do have 6 chapters that form a core of the early part of the book of Genesis.  And this is written like its own tidy block – begins with an orderly genealogical record – Adam, Seth, their kids…  Down to a man named Noah, then we hear Noah’s story till chapter 9 and his kids’ ancestry.com family tree in chapter 10. But in the middle of this tidiness, we have a story of cataclysm, which we usually call the flood. 

And we’re going to see in a short section of text, how much we can learn about God, about history and about humanity.  If you have your Bibles, open with me to Genesis 6…  We’re going to skip the first 4 verses (bizarre!) as they could be a morning in and of themselves and focus on the question of History, Mystery and Theology 

Before we read the text, let me preface it with a few words about 

What do we learn about History? From Noah

• The deluge narrative is consistent with historical  & scientific accounts

- Almost every culture globally accounts for a world-wide flood

Almost every single culture has a flood story.  Which should tell us something about how to categorize this narrative – that we can put this into the “history” section.  The widespread fossil evidence the geodesic changes and observable processes today that point back to a time of universal global coverage by water…  If that is something that interests you, there’s lots of reading you can do outside of this morning.  But the intriguing thing is that when you compare historical accounts, the questions of causality of this global flood is quite different. 

Take, for example, the Babylonian story of flood which is called the Gilgamesh Epic.  In it, the gods send the flood on the earth because the earth is getting over populated and there is a resulting noise – like a big party in your neighbours condo below.  So what’s different about the biblical narrative of the flood? Well, let’s read together and discover

Why Did God Send the Flood?  (Scripture slide – Brad to read 6:5-8)

The question of why did God send a flood is related to the question how bad was it.  How far reaching where the effects of Genesis 3 and the deliberate choices of humanity to reject God?  Did it taint part of them but they were still pretty much a good lot with a few bad apples?  Or was it something deeper? 

Genesis 6 gives us a clear and early anthropological picture.  What do we learn about Humanity? When we put ourselves under the microscope?

Presented here again to us is God’s design…

• The tension of freedom & boundaries

It’s like Genesis 5 takes us back to the symmetry and order of Genesis 1…  And then in Gen 3, we have our first example of freedom being abused and boundaries being crossed and consequences coming online.  Then again in Gen 4, we have Cain and Abel – God gives freedom within limits and Cain makes one choice and Abel makes another.  And we see that it is Cain’s heart…  and now

- This is the third time in Genesis where human violation requires God’s action  God says in verse 2 “I will not strive with humanity forever”.  We see that humanity cannot act without any consequences whatsoever…  That there is incredible freedom God have given us, yes.  But there are also limits.  And just like Can and Abel, we see where this push against the limits and boundaries comes from – the human heart. 

Now, when the Bible uses the term heart (or when we use it in a song), It’s not talking about the organ that pumps your blood.  The Hebrew term has to do with the “centre of human intentionality and action.” (Roop, 62).  And so relatively early in the book of beginnings, we see clearly:      

• The depth of depravity in our hearts

The language is pervasive.  The problem has gone beyond any single individual (bad apple), it affects and effects every facet of humanity’s intentionality and actions.  Look at the words used “every impulse” “thought” “action” is “always” “only” “every day” bent towards evil.  Koop, in his excellent commentary on Genesis says it this way “Every time the human community faces tensions and problems in life – boundaries, rivalries, limitations – those are resolved in ways that are contrary to the creation vision.

- “The creation vision of Genesis 1 & 2 lies in ruins… wickedness has invaded the very heart of human response.” (Roop)

A later writer of the Scriptures would say “the heart is deceitful and wicked above all things, who can know it?”  (Jeremiah 17:9)

And so we hear of God’s plan to remedy the depth of despair that this situation has brought – He is going to wipe things clean and start again. 

Recently, in our house we inherited a computer that belonged to my father-in-law.  It’s a great desk-top machine that’s a few years old but has all the stuff we need for basic computing.  But we noticed something…  It’s not operating as it was intended to operate.  It’s way slower than it should be and it tends to do funny things that you don’t want it to do.  So we’ve decided that we need to reformat the hard drive.  To wipe the whole things clean of all of the bloated programs and start over.  And in some ways, that is what God is doing here in Genesis 6 – He is intervening to restore humanity to its original functionality and purpose.  And in His actions, we learn some powerful truths about His nature.   What do we learn about God?  Look with me at Genes 6:6 and 6:8 again carefully…  The NLT says “I am sorry I ever made them” which is a bit weak.  The NIV says “regret” the ESV is a bit closer, it says “the Lord was grieved”.  And I want us to stay here for a minute because this is an important difference between me wiping my hard drive and God’s intent in sending the flood.  At first brush, the response seems almost vindictive and cataclysmic.  Humanity is evil.  Boom.  Wipe them out. 

• God’s judgment arises out of His grief

Is God enraged that humanity has lived in violation of his plans?  No He is in tears.  He grieves with anguish.  This counters the notion of that is sometimes known as the “watch maker” where the world is explained as an intricate watch with bazillions of moving pieces.  And that perhaps God set it all up, wound it up and then left it to run on its own.  The biblical picture is NOT of a God who is distant and uninvolved in the affairs of humanity.  Who is somehow removed or calloused or busy doing other things…  God cares about what goes on around here!  God’s judgment arises out of his grief as much as it does out of his anger.  The image:

- Like a parent, He lives with the pain of a world distorted & disrupted by our choices

I get a little bit testy when people say something like “phew… I’m so glad God isn’t like He was in the Old Testament days – vindictive, c capricious, mad as all get out – always zapping people with lightning bolts who don’t listen to him!  Phew – I’m so glad Jesus came along and now God is all about love and grace and stuff.  That picture of God is unjustified by the text!  Theologian Walter Bruggeman says that “the portrait of God in Genesis 6:6 shows us not a God enraged over the violation of creation, but a God in tears” (Bruggeman, qtd in Roop, p. 62). 

Not only does God grieve over the world and the state of the human heart, but in His mercy,

• He provides a deliberate way of escape from the dangerous waters

We’ve seen this in Genesis 3, God, in His rich mercy continues to exhibit His grace towards humanity.  He finds a righteous man, Noah, to whom he gives a bit of an odd project – He’s to build something that no one has ever seen before, a massive boat called an Ark (which, for you SuperBowl fans, is 1.5 football fields in length), to address a cataclysmic problem that no one has ever heard of before (so much rain that it makes Langley look like a North African dessert!).  And he gives it to him when he is 500 years old!  And just like in the movie spoof Evan Almighty, this bizarre project would have attracted the attention of the entire known world.  And Noah would have had opportunity to explain to his neighbours why in the world he was building an ocean going vessel in the middle of dry land.  They would have been provided a way of escape.

This theme of God providing a way of escape is all through the Bible

-         Jonah, Jesus calming the sea, Exodus, etc.

But the powerful reality ad truth is that again, this is not the work of a distant, historical God… This is the very same work He is engaged in today.  And so the story of God’s provision of a way out by Noah’s ark invites us to explore the question:

-         “Where have you seen this personally?”

Where has God provided a way of rescue and escape from turbulence in your own life and experience?  Some of you are walking through this right now…  The waters are high and threaten threaten to overwhelm you.  You’re trying to find work in a slow industry.  You’re unable to make ends meet and you keep going deeper and deeper into credit card debt.  You’re marriage or relationships with those close to you are strained beyond what you think is reparable.  Your kids are pushing boundaries beyond what you can handle.  Those close to you are sick and some are dying.  But listen to God’s promise to those in deep waters from the book of Isaiah:

When you go through deep waters,

      I will be with you.

 When you go through rivers of difficulty,

      you will not drown….

Do not be afraid for I am with you” (Isaiah 43:1,5)

Notice that God doesn’t say “I’m a magic gene…  When you are in deep waters, rub the lamp 3 times and it will all go away”.  No.  He simply promises that when you are there, He will be there.  And he invites you to cling to Him in a deeper, more intense way.  That’s an incredible promise that is reiterated in the Flood narrative. Here’s a boat without a rudder, without a sail – devoid of any navigational ability at all – the whole deal is in God’s hands.  He sends the rain, He sends the animals, he opens the floodgates above and below…  Start to finish, Noah and his family and you and your family are in the hand of God. 

And it’s here too that we see God’s plan for your life and for human history clearly unfolding.  The flood comes, Noah and his family are saved, they start again only to blow it by the end of Chapter 9.  We are given to understand that even Noah isn’t perfect.  That we will all make mistakes but that our only recourse is the grace and mercy of God. 

We learn again that ultimately,  

• God is ultimately in charge of both history and humanity

One day, either your personal history and the history of all of humanity will wind up.  Will expire.  And the Bible says that God will assess the outcome of your life and mine.  And the word used in Genesis 6:6 & 8 has interested contemporary application – an accounting ledger.  When the text says “God as sorry” the language is that He is auditing accounts.  Looking at the columns and balancing the ledgers that has been put out of balance by humanity wickedness.   He is enforcing a system of checks and balances, as it were with our world and so the questions that come to us about history and theology from Genesis 5-10 could be distilled as follows:

-         The driving question: “When God comes in judgment, can anyone survive?”

-         The Divine answer for Noah and for us: “Yes, but only by God’s grace.”

In invite you again to place yourself in the hands of grace.  Assess your own ledger and invite God to yet again speak to you. 

The team is coming to lead us in songs of response that mirror to progression of the narrative and the prayer teams will be available at the sides for you to converse with.