Preached in Markham Baptist Church, March 7, 2004.

Genesis 8:20 - 9:17

CONNECTING WITH GOD WHO MAKES FAITHFUL PROMISES

In his letters to the young churches Paul sometimes gives direction, instruction as to how to live like Christ and reflect Christ’s character. To the Romans, for instance, he wrote “Be devoted to one another, honour one another. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction faithful in prayer.” They are words of correction, instruction, challenge.

But there are other times when Paul lifts up the awesomeness of God, the character of Christ, the wonder of His love. He takes us on eagle’s wings soaring way above the things of this earth so we can catch a glimpse of the glory and wonder of God. And as you read, you feel you have reached new heights and have entered a rare atmosphere, for you are being released from all that is dull and material and dead and brought into the life-giving presence of God. Think of Paul’s opening words to the Ephesians:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” and you feel your spirit lifting.

“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his [sons] children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves.”

And as you read that, the wonder and grace and love of God washes over you.

Paul knew there is a time for challenge, instruction, but there are also times when we need to stand back and adore the character and person of God.

Our passage this morning is just like that. The focus is on God. The focus is on His character, His awesomeness, His grace, His provision, His purposes and we are being invited through reading the narrative to magnify the Lord, to exalt His name for great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.

After we study these verses I hope we will be able to offer a sacrifice of praise and adoration to God, just as Noah has done in our passage. And is it any wonder that he built an altar to the Lord and sacrificed the best animals to God? He has had such an awesome experience of God. For, in the midst of God’s judgment Noah has tasted God’s grace and has been safely transported in the ark.

And as we read we are brought into God’s presence and we discover the pleasure of God, the delight of God. Verse 21 – “The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma …” of Noah’s sacrifice. Was it because Noah was such a good cook that God was pleased and took pleasure in the sacrifice? Noah may have been a good cook, I’m sure it was a great-smelling barbeque. But I don’t think that it was that God took delight in the sacrifice as much as He did in the act of sacrifice. What pleased God was that the first thing Noah did when he stepped off the ark was to worship God. He acknowledged God first. I mean, if I were Noah I would be looking for the best spot to build my house – THEN I’d worship God. But not Noah - he put God first, and God takes delight in that.

But not only that, Noah offers the best animals for sacrifice to God. Again, think of it, Noah has the responsibility of repopulating the earth. He’s got to make sure that the animals are safe and sound and the first thing he does is sacrifice every “clean” bird and every clean animal – that is, the best, the perfect and he sacrifices them to God. That’s faith.

You know often we think that God is hard to live with. We think, well, God is so unknowable and so invisible, who can know how to please Him? But we know. We know what brings Him pleasure, He has revealed it to us in His word. “The sacrifices of God are broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17) (see also Romans 12:1)

That means that God desires the offering of our lives. It is our lives and that God wants. And isn’t that amazing??? That God would actually want me. Would actually want you. And we say, “Are you serious? You want to spend time with me? You want to be with me? You want me? And God says, “Yes, I take delight in you!” Come and offer yourself to God first and foremost.

And then we think of our acts of service out of love and our attempts to serve because of our gratitude and we think how small and insignificant they are. “All I do is teach Sunday School.” Or “All I do is drive patients to their cancer treatments.” “All I do…” My friends, we need to realize how much God delights in us. How much joy we bring to His heart. I’m not suggesting that we take pride in ourselves, but I am suggesting that God isn’t as hard to live with as we sometimes think, that He is much easier to please than we sometimes believe and much more willing to accept the offerings of our lives then we allow for.

I think sometimes we need to read the Bible as if it really is addressed to us. Especially, again to mention the letters of Paul in the New Testament. We often read those letters as Paul’s words to the young churches. But we must also understand that in some mysterious way they first and foremost God’s Words and they are written to you. And we need to read them like that. For instance read Ephesians 1:15-16 and understand that it is God’s Word about you

“Ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you.” Do you hear that? God is actually giving thanks for you. God’s delight and pleasure in you!

Or in Philippians 1:4 God says to you – “ I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel for the first day until now.”

My friends we need to come and see God’s delight in you. His love for you. How eager He is to spend time with you. How pleased He is to receive your offerings of self, time, service, ability. No matter how insignificant you think they are. God takes great delight and pleasure in your offerings – they are a pleasing aroma.

Our text then brings us to consider the purposes of God. In chapter 9 verses 1-7 Noah is given God’s clear purpose. Noah and his descendents are to be fruitful and fill the earth, which is amazing grace given the fact that God knows that every inclination of the heart is evil.

Noah is to care for the earth and he is called on to respect all living creatures. He can eat meat, but not meat with “lifeblood” in it. Besides being good dietary advice God is highlighting the value He places on life. Not only animals but especially human life. Don’t shed the blood of another human being. Why? Because humanity is highly valued by God. He has demonstrated that by bringing Noah through the flood, but also says the text we are made in the image of God.

Now all of this was in no means to restrict Noah. The provisions of God are not meant to harm Noah’s psyche, or his free will. O, how we need to realize how good and pure and holy the purposes of God are. Do you know He values you highly and wants you to have life to the full? As Henry Blackaby writes, “When God gives you a command he is trying to protect and preserve the best he has for you. He does not want you to lose life. When God gives a command He is not restricting you. He is freeing you. His purpose is that you might live life abundantly.”1

O, that we would know that God wants only the best for us. That He is seeking our good and when He outlines His purposes to us in Scripture it is not in order to restrict us and limit us but to give life to us the full.

O that we would all memorize and trust the words of Psalm 19:

“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. …. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb."

The pleasure of God, the purposes of God, next we are taken to the heights, to the promises of God. In chapter 8 verse 20 and 21 we read, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.”

I mean, if you think that the pleasure of God is wonderful, that the purposes of God spectacular you haven’t seen anything yet – here is the wonderful promises of God. The wonderful promises of God, written throughout His word are there for your comfort, to give you strength and fortitude to move forward in His name.

Here in this text don’t be thinking that God is “sorry” because He made a mistake, so He makes this promises never again to do that bad thing. No. He’s not in heaven saying, “Oops, I sent a bit too much rain, I’ll be sure to turn off the sprinkler before I go to bed next time.” No, no. God is not making this promise for Himself but for Noah.

Anne Graham Lotz makes this point in her book, God’s Story, she says, and I paraphrase, “Can you imagine what a nervous wreck Noah would be after all that he went through and witnessed? With every clap of thunder, every crack of lightning, Noah’s heart would pound a little faster, his knees would grow weak and ask is this it Lord? Are you going to wipe out creation again? Every time Noah or one of his sons sinned, every time Noah heard of someone else’s sin he would be terrified that God’s judgment was going to fall. He would live in constant fear analyzing the sin of his own life, and the sin of the world trying to determine how much was too much because Noah was weak and he would constantly fail and would constantly sin.”2

And God promises Noah never again will He destroy all living creatures. Notice that God says never three times in 2 verses (20 and 21 of chapter 8). He is reassuring Noah.

Never again will I curse the ground because of man – He did that as a result of Adam and Eve’s failure – here He says He will not increase the curse, even though every inclination of His heart is evil from childhood. That’s grace. This is a promise of grace. This is a promise of grace, His unmerited favour.

And never again will I destroy all living creatures. Throughout the seasons, day and night will NEVER cease.

They are promises for Noah. They are promises to us. God is committed to the human race. God is committed to you. And that commitment does not depend on humanity’s goodness or sinlessness but on His own word of grace.

And we know God’s word never fails. His promises to you are sure and steadfast. Do a study sometimes on that word "never" and see how often God says it to you in His word. And you will see that He is totally committed to you.

God is totally committed to you and we can trust His promises. There is one other wonderful fact to mention about God out of this text and it connects with His promises – and that is we need to notice God’s faithfulness.

God makes promises – they are called a covenant here in 9:9 and again in verse 11 where it says “I establish my covenant with you. Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of the flood never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

And then God seals the covenant, or the promise He has made with a sign, verse 12, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature. I have set my rainbow in the sky.”

My friends, you and I have been given God’s promises in God’s Word. This book is filled with promises from God to you. We need to take it in that this God’s Word to you, to me, and that He makes promises to you. God is committed to you. And He makes promises to you so that you can grow in your likeness of Jesus Christ, so that you can face whatever comes your way, so that when lightning strikes and floods of trouble and difficulty rise you have the promise of God. He will never let you go.

And then you have the seal of His promises, the covenant. God is faithful to His promises and He makes a sign for Noah to show His faithfulness. And it is a rainbow - for Noah to look at. Can you think of Noah, every time he sins, every time he falls into temptation. Can you see him going to God in repentance and saying to God, “God, do you remember that rainbow in the sky, do you remember that you said you would not wipe out humanity again by flood, do you remember the rainbow? That’s a sign of your promise!”

And God would say, “Yes, that’s my promise to you.”

My friends, God is faithful to His promises. As an old preacher from long ago said, "It is the crowning attribute of God, His faithfulness."

We sang of it this morning, didn’t we? Forever God is faithful. And we sang that several times – I hope you weren’t thinking “how many times are we going to sing this?” Instead I hope you thinking of the wonder of it all – that God is faithful. That we who have given God every cause for giving up on us – instead He is faithful! FOREVER. FOREVER. FOREVER.

In 2 Timothy 2:13 we read, “If we are faithless he will remain faithful” That’s astounding. He is faithful.

The bow in the sky is a sign of his faithfulness - He will not turn back on his promise to Noah, or to you. He will forever, forever, keep His promises to you.

Sometimes we lament over our sin and cry and repent and we think that God can never take us back to His side to His heart that we can never be called a child of God again. My friends our God is faithful. There is nothing but love in His heart toward you. His patience toward you is endless. Deny Him, ignore Him, forget His promises, disregard His purposes for you, but still His hands are outstretched toward you day after day.

When God makes these promises to Noah that he will never wipe out humanity again, when God makes promises to you to give you eternal life, when God promises to you to take away your sin and remove it as far as east is from west. When God promises you that no one is able to snatch you out of his hands, there are no conditions. There are no limits.

Do you know the Calvinists believe that once you are God’s hands there is nothing that can snatch you out of His hand. They believe that – not because we have a firm grasp on God but because God has a firm grasp on us!

God has given a covenant sign to Noah – a rainbow. To you and me He has given a covenant sign. The old Covenant is a foretaste of it, but the new covenant is greater for in it He promises to forgive and reconciles us to Him and restore in us that image of God that we lost in the Garden. The sign of this new covenant isn’t the rainbow, but the crucified body of Christ.

Jesus said, “this cup is the new covenant in my blood.” This is His promise to you. Forever! God is faithful. HE will always welcome you back to his side. He will always forgive you of your sin. HE will not wipe you out. Why? Because you have a sign – the shed blood of Christ.

We are in the wonderful atmosphere of God’s presence, God takes great delight in you. God’s purposes for you are perfect, not restrictive. God’s promises are for you and they are forever.

Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - March 2004
 

Endnotes:

1. Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God, Broadman Holman Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1994. p. 13

2. Anne Graham Lotz, God’s Story,  Word Publishing, Nashville, 1997, p. 225