In the beginning, God - grace found Noah

This is not the full text - just summary notes.

Big, extraordinary story with many parallels in ancient world.
Palistrophe (extended chiasmus) – favourite Hebrew pattern. Like a mirror story all centred on 8:1.
Same story lines and day/month numbers all reversed.
Carefully, deliberately, constructed to make several theological points.


This only matters because it is a way of saying, hey, this is important – and different.
1.      God is in control, he is Lord (transcendent)
2.      He brings order out of chaos
3.      He remembers and rescues
4.      Sacrifice for worship (not to feed a deity)
5.      Mono-theist
6.      Personal (immanent)
7.      He gives his blessing to people










Key themes in the Noah story:
1.      Grace finds us
2.      God gives us something to do
3.      God shuts us in
4.      God remembers us
5.      God blesses us
6.      God accepts our worship
7.      God promises grace
8.      God provides grace

6:5-9
The world is in a mess, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Why doesn’t God just hit delete and try again?
Instead of anger (God is never angry in Genesis):
1.      Regret – I wish (identify with our feelings)
2.      Pain – cp childbirth and work (identify with our pain)
3.      Wipe out – admission of failure
4.      Grace found Noah – Noah found favour, can’t be earned (the order is important, grace comes first)

Noah
1.      Doesn’t speak
2.      Man of faith
3.      Not a hero/celebrity (cp secular)
4.      Worships (cp Cain & Abel)
5.      Obedient (after grace)

Noah, having been found by grace, is blameless, walks with God.
You have been found by grace, what’s your response?

 
7:5-16
God gave Noah crazy instructions to build a boat on dry land.
Noah’s challenge to you is – when God instructs - will you be obedient?
1.      Risk
2.      Ridicule
3.      Sacrifice the normalities of life
4.      Lay down your expectations – your own life plan

What great, crazy thing is God calling you to do? What does obedience to him mean for you? Is it possible that your life plan is too small?
When God has gets Noah where he wants him (having done what he was told to do), God shut him in.
Can’t do it himself, God makes sure he is safe, God is in control.
You can’t secure your future, you can’t control everything.
Good news is that God shuts us in, he will rescue you from the storm and the flood and the new life will one day begin.

 
7:24-8:1
1.      Grace finds Noah
2.      Unlike other narratives – God intervenes, he remembers and he rescues
3.      Exactly half way through the story (days and months – unusual detail)
4.      This is the point of the story: before = chaos, [mirror image] after = order
You may feel shut up and forgotten (not realising that this is God’s doing). But he has not forgotten and the time will come when he will intervene and rescue.


8:15-21
1.      Blessing not a curse 
2.      Noah’s response is sacrifice (cp Cain & Abel). A whole sacrifice of the best
3.      Not feeding God but:
a.      It is a sacrifice of propitiation – for the sins of the world
b.      It is a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the grace that remembered and rescued
4.      God is pleased with the sacrifice, he sees, hears, understands our sacrifice, he accepts our worship

 
What is our response to his grace finding us, to intervention and rescue?
Do we respond with a couple of the less special animals, ones we can spare?
When God smells the sacrifice of your life let the fragrance be something beautiful, from the very best you can give.
Give him the best, complete and whole: Time, money, energy, commitment, love?

 
9:7-17
·        Grace found Noah
·        Leads to righteousness and faithfulness (the order is important)
·        Righteousness & faithfulness lead to obedience, sacrifice
·        Sacrifice now leads to covenant

Covenant: God blesses Noah and the remnant and makes a promise. He knows it will be needed because man is sinful but he promises that he won’t wipe them out again.

God creates a sign of grace – the rainbow (man can’t recreate it).
In making this promise, this huge covenant, one that is forever witnessed in the clouds, he creates a mission, a plan. This is the start of the mission to rescue mankind from sin.



The mission finds its culmination in another man who found favour with God – righteous,  blameless, faithful.
This time God’s divine intervention was not to rescue the faithful man -
but to sacrifice him for the sake of sinful man and woman.
Noah was rescued from the judgement, saved from paying the price.

Jesus took the judgement of the world on his blameless shoulders and paid the price for us.
Thus fulfilling God’s covenant sign of which we are reminded by the rainbow.


Romans 3:22-26




If you are convicted of falling short of what God has created you for, of allowing a barrier to come between you and God, of doing stuff, saying stuff, thinking stuff that leaves you feeling guilty:

You are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that comes through Jesus … I invite you to place your faith in Jesus, to repent of your sin and follow him with all of your life. To be rescued from the disaster that is overtaking you. To experience the promise of his blessing and grace – forever.

If you are already a follower of Jesus then how have you responded to his grace?
He found you, called you to faithfulness.
What is the ark you are being called to build?
1.      Risk
2.      Ridicule
3.      Sacrifice the normalities of life
4.      Lay down your expectations

None of us deserve to be rescued from the consequences of our lives and choices, but God has a plan. In a time of great wrongdoing and disaster – grace found Noah and through Jesus grace will find you. Listen to the invitation from God, respond in obedience to his amazing challenges, let him save and rescue you and then deliver you into eternal life.