What would you say that is one of the biggest problems in Christendom in America today? I wonder if it isn’t that we have allowed God and even Jesus to become intellectual constructs in our lives. Sure, we know our Heavenly Father exists and that if we’ve been clothed in Him, that we have the hope of salvation. Yet then we are mired by all that we see in the news. There is wars brewing, enemies being embraced as long, hearty friends, and those who’ve been sworn to protect us now are popular targets.
It’s easy to forget that God didn’t just set this world up and then walked away and is watching from a distance. No, He’s every bit as involved in the daily affairs of man. And our series that we are starting has that for the goal, that we hold onto a book that tells the story of a God who loves His children, who established them for the way of salvation, and provided the route for salvation. We will be reminded that He is the God who speaks, the God who acts, the God who listens, and the God who, to have a relationship with us, to redeem our banishment, sacrificed His Son as an atonement for yours and my sin. This morning we take a look at the Creation to the Flood, or the first 6 chapters of Genesis.
First, I take the Creation literally. I reject what the world tells us. The other day, the cub scouts went to Coronado Memorial Park. The pack master described how the plates over time shifted, slowly making mountains as one plate shifted onto the next. With us covering creation and the flood this morning, I can easily see that as the springs of the deep, as Scripture calls it, breaking forth threw one plate onto another, and viola, a mountain is formed.
I take it literally because the writer of Hebrews, chapter 4, takes it literally. It is logical because the ion theory, the sun was created after the plants. They’d not survive without light for millions of years. Also as evolution being the only opposing theory, why would God contend with Adam’s sin and not just start with the next couple?
1. We were created with purpose.
You see, we were created with purpose of mind. We were created because our Heavenly Father desires to have a relationship with us. Yet He didn’t want one as we might have with our pets, without real free will. He wanted us to freely love Him, to choose to be with Him. Yet in that free will, in that not wanting to mess things up, Man added to what God has said.
God said, “Don’t eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Man said that they must not even touch it, or they would die. Seeing that touching it, they didn’t die, they ate it, thinking that that too, was a myth.
Satan comes in and lies to us. It’s what he does. He tells us that what we read in the Bible isn’t accurate, isn’t trustworthy. He gives us in the guise of science more lies and doubts. If the earth is only around 6,000 years, then why do some systems of dating yield ages in the millions?
Empirical science is trustworthy. But for creation, for evolution, these are a matter of faith. And if Satan can get us to reject the creation account because it doesn’t line up with geology, then it doesn’t take long before we question the rest of Scripture.
We doubt that God loves us, that He meant for us to live in a perfect world, yet we blew it. We’ve become so good at blowing it, that we no longer need Satan’s help. I’m not saying that Satan isn’t at work, but quite the opposite.
2. We were allowed to do things our way .
Yet our proclivity is to decline. After man was driven from the Garden, as the earth filled with people, we didn’t get better. We know that after the lie, 2 brothers made an offering. One thought of God first. The other gave as a second thought. Remember, we were created with a purpose. God didn’t condemn Cain because Cain didn’t think first of God. Rather, Cain became jealous because God looked with favor at Abel’s offering. Not that it was salad vs. steak, but that God wants to be first, not hind thought.
God allowed man to continue on. Sure, some were good to the point that they were called sons of God. But they didn’t make the right choices. They married those who didn’t care for God, but rather themselves. Even the godly can be corrupted by the ungodly. Paul told the Colossians that truth. By chapter 5, Moses records that man was entirely evil, entirely self centered, caring not that God created them for a purpose.
Another side note here: Did you know, mathematically speaking, Noah, the man who found grace in the eyes of the Lord, was around 50 years old when Adam died? All these people who did evil in the sight of the Lord, though they could not talk to Him, they could have talked to Adam. Perhaps that is why Noah found favor with the Lord. He actually talked with Adam, learned from him. It’s speculation, but reasonable.
3. God gave a better way.
It’s because Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord that we have a shadow of salvation. Now Noah wasn’t a perfect man. He continued to sin as you can read further in Genesis. But for our account today, he found favor in the eyes of the Lord. He was given a method of salvation.
Peter then takes this and likens it further. Just as Noah was saved through the flood, so does our submission in being baptized into Christ saves us. Mind you, this is a work, baptism, but not a work of the one coming to the Father. It is the work of the church. It is a lesson that Peter was intimately familiar with. While learning from Jesus, Peter once had opportunity to walk out on the water to meet Jesus. Tradition tells us that he took 3 small steps and began sinking. I wonder if maybe he made 6 yards before he started sinking. Point is, when his focus was on Christ, Peter could do anything. But when he took his eyes off of Jesus, he found his life in danger.
So what is our take-home from this? God created us. He desires to know us. But we really aren’t inclined to do it, to make it on our own. Time shows that when man is without God, man tends to focus on himself. We need God, who is also ever patient with us and full of grace, to save us. Just has he saved Noah in the ark, so He will save us when we trust in Him through Christ Jesus.
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