If You Really Want to Know Jesus, Know the Old Testament
Part 4: The Flood
September 21, 2008
Genesis 6:9-22; 7:24; 8:14-19
Today’s text is more about the heart than the waters. It is more about passion and grief then about floods and death. It is more about tears then rain. Today as we study this story we call The Flood, we really want to look at this question, what is at the center of the heart? What is going on in the heart?
When people, especially Theologians. look at God, they imagine a static God one who does not change. For in the thoughts of many Greek philosophers, change is the first sign of imperfection. Because when one changes you break down, you begin to deteriorate. Or, necessarily you change from one thing to the other and it’s either better or worse. Rarely does change result in the same exact thing hence, change the point of change. Many theologians pick up on this philosophical view of change and decide that God cannot change because that would bring about something of imperfection in God. Something that would bring about a change in God and that change would lead to deterioration. Or wonder if God changes from something good to something better then God lacks something when he was only good and not better. So for many, many years, thousands of years, this idea of change rooted in Greek philosophy has set over the Christian church so that we understand that God does not change. The reasons for this at heart lie in the reality of change and passion. Passion will often bring about change and that change comes from anger or frustration or all kinds of things that passion wells up in our hearts. Passion causes us to do things that are often irrational or unreasonable. That’s why we say they’re inflamed with passion. Being inflamed with passion does not mean that somebody is able to control what they are doing at all. In fact, being inflamed with passion means that in some sense we’re scared because they are out of control, reason doesn’t dictate what they will do and so many theologians have argued that God is in fact passionless. That there is no passion in God because if God were to be inflamed with passion he might burn out of control without reason and that would be great risk for us.
And yet, I turned to this text this morning and I tell you that it is all about passion. It is all about a flame of passion within the heart of God that burns as bright and as strong as any passion you will ever encounter. So what do we make of this passion filled God? What do we make about this passionate God and this heart of God in the text? Genesis says, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”
What I have told you in the last couple of weeks is that God has created the world, made all of this for us and invited humanity into a covenant of relationship with God. That covenant is based on these two facts: God is God and we are his creation. God is God and we as his creation, acknowledge that fact and live in faithfulness and obedience to the one who created us. We are called in the covenant to acknowledge him and rejoice in all of his goodness and blessings in his life and in our life with him. We are called to care for creation and look after all that he has made for us. And we are called to obey, so that death may be held at bay so that death may be held from us.
Vocation, care for creation. Blessing, enjoy all that God has given us. And prohibition, obey what God has commanded as he is God and we are not. That is the purpose that God has for creation. It’s God’s grace that offers life and purpose and blessing and vocation to all of us. To live in abundance, to have more that we could imagine and to be in relationship with God in faithfulness and obedience. But it is also God’s gracious purpose that brings creation to existence that governs that covenant. If it’s gracious and loving it means that God is not a tyrant. That God cannot conspire to force us to keep that covenant. That God cannot in fact make us obey.
The covenant that we have with God is a covenant that’s based in freedom and that freedom allows us two choices really, the first one is faithful obedience to the call and life of God. To the purpose that God has given us. And the second choice that we have in this free covenant is to assert ourselves over God. To assert ourselves as more than God and to go our own way. To ignore the prohibitions that God gives for life, to turn the blessings that God has given into burdens, and to ignore our call to care for creation; those are the choices. Faithful obedience or disregard. That is what the grace of God offers us, a choice. An opportunity to say yes to God or no. And so God looks throughout the world and looks even more precisely into the very hearts of humanity, to the depths of our soul, into the very center of who we are and God sees that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. That’s quite an indictment. It’s quite a statement about the state of the human heart. Creation exists only because of the gracious love and offering of God and that creation rejects God, says no to God, says I’ll go my own way God thank you very much. God sees in creation nothing of faithfulness and the purpose of God to the world call blessing and life is at stake. What will God do? I would suggest to you that the very heart of God is at issue. The way of God with the world is at issue. Grace and love and freedom are at stake and what will God do.
I wonder if you look around the world today, if you see a lot of difference than the way that God describes the world before the flood. I wonder if you see a lot of change in the world. I see wars fought for reasons that nobody’s quite sure of anymore. I see murder and fact. I see financial markets crumbling because men and women were selfish and self-serving in their decisions. I see humanity destroying creation through pollution everyday rather than caring for it and I really don’t much care if you believe in global warming or climate change or all the rest, I’m just talking about the fact that air quality in New Jersey alone causes more death than things like car accidents. Just the air we breathe cause more death than most accidents. When I look around the world today with all that you see, I wonder if God’s assessment that every inclination or thoughts of their hearts is evil really sounds like an exaggeration. Like it’s too far off the mark. I makes me wonder because this is the way the world was described before God chose to destroy it with the flood and I don’t really see much difference in it today. I’m not really sure the world has changed much. What’s going on?
God says, after he is determined that the thoughts and inclinations of the human heart are always tending towards evil, “I’ve determined to make an end of all flesh. For the earth is filled with violence because of them. Now I’m going to destroy them, all the flesh, all the people, along with the earth, which means everything else because of us. Now you know who this sounds like? If you were in the right church when I started to describe that the world is exactly the way in today as it was before the flood, I could go on quite a fanfare of hell, fire and brimstone couldn’t I about the end of the world. Do you know who it sounds like to me? It sounds like Hal Lindsey, the late great planet earth. It sounds like Tim LeHay. Where all the bad people will get left behind and everybody’s going to be destroyed and wiped out. Sounds like Harold Campy, who Joan tells me has come up with a date in the not too distant future when we are all going to die, cause the world’s gonna end. I wonder thou if these people who are so determined to predict that the world is headed to hell in a hand basket because of all the evil and sin. I wonder if their determination is really well founded because think what’s at stake here, God has set his purpose in creation, God has set his covenant, his will, his love and his way in his creation. What does it mean if God wipes us all out? Does it mean that God’s purpose was thwarted? That sin and evil were more powerful than God’s way, God’s grace, God’s purpose in creation? How could it not mean that?
I’m always fascinated by those who are so anxious to predict the end of everything without ever asking the question, I wonder what this means about the purpose of God in the world? The will and way of God particularly grace that brings it all in the beginning, saves it all in Christ and I believe brings it all into calumniation in the end but what does it say about that grace if we’re all going to get wiped out. Sometimes I wonder if people are a little bit too anxious for the end of world. They desire it just a little bit too much. They hope a little bit too much for the justice of God for everyone else as long as the grace of God remains for me. I wonder if they share the heart of God when they predict the doom of everyone. Here’s what the text says, “…the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” I would suggest to you that God’s sorry is not regret that human-beings existed as if wiping them out would be difficult because clearly God brought us all into existence if he was really all that bothered about us being here, he could wipe us all out. It’s not really that hard. If God was that sorry that humans existed, they could not exist in the matter of moments, it would be rather easy for God who brought everything into existence to end it all for humanity. So why is God sorry? I believe that the sorry, that the grief that the scriptures talk about in the heart of God is the pain of love. God’s heart was broken and is broken by those he loved so graciously to create and give and present a good and wonderful creation for and as quickly as possible after this love and embrace and gracious giving of God, humanity said no thank you and slapped God across the face.
I wonder for all of you who have been or are married, are you married to the first person you fell in love with? Are you married to the first person that you ever dated and gave your heart to? I’m not. So I’ll risk first to tell you that…right. I’m not. If you’re not, you’ve probably had your love returned, given back, refused. I remember the first time my first girlfriend broke up with me. Do you know what I felt? I felt this deep pain in my heart. Trying to tell this to the high schoolers today, I said, you know, when we talk about heart, we’re talking about love, we’re talking about the seed of emotion, we’re talking about our being…right? Not the organ that pumps in your chest but I felt pain that actually heart my chest too. And you know what else I felt with that grief and that pain? I felt sorry that I ever loved her in the first place. Because I didn’t want to hurt like that. I didn’t want that pain. Wonder how God felt, when the creation and humanity that he spent his whole self foreign creating this wonder place said no. The text says, “…that it grieved him to his heart that he felt sorry.” I wonder if God felt sorry that he loved us in the first place. I can’t help but think that’s actually true, it’s accurate. That God hurt so much in heart that it was broken and God doesn’t desire a broken heart so he felt bad, sorry, sad that he ever gave his heart away in the first place. In the midst of all this ache and pain and teenage angst that we’re putting on God which is probably not appropriate by the way, we get introduced to Noah and Noah’s this fascinating character because the text says, “that Noah walked with God. Noah found a place in the heart of God because Noah was faithful and obedient.” And it fascinates me because God says to Noah, I’m wiping out everybody. I’m wiping out all flesh in all the world and I’m taking them all out except you and with you I’ll start anew, and I’ll put the care and the call of taking care of creation in your hands. Did you hear that in the text? God says, “I’ll give every kind of animal, male and female, the creeping kind, the domestic kind, the wild kind, in your care.” It’s like God has found his new Adam. Remember what I said last week about how God gave us a call to care for creation? Blessed us to live in it with abundance and asked us to obey. God’s heart is broken and he’s grieved and he chooses to live out of that brokenness to wipeout all of creation except for one and with that one he starts anew and he gives him a calling. I’ll give you, build this ark and obey me and with that call comes care for these creatures and provide for their food and their wellbeing and eventually when he gets out of the ark he gives him a blessing be fruitful and multiply, enjoy all that I have given you. It’s as if God says I wiping everything out and starting over again with Noah my new Adam and my purpose will not be thwarted for I will give a call, a blessing and demand obedience.
A couple of things that fascinate me. One, in the midst of all this wickedness that God sees in the world, wickedness that I think we all still see, obedience is still possible. Faithfulness is still walking in the midst of it as Noah walks with God. Now I’ve told you before that I think that Noah, the description in Genesis of the world before the flood, is a pretty apt description of the world today. And yet, there’s still the chance for the way of Noah. God still calls you to live out your call, to be blessed, and to be obedient like Noah. Be like Noah in the midst of all this craziness and wickedness. The second thing that strikes me is that God’s purposes are not thwarted by that evil. God’s way with the world is not eliminated by that evil no matter how evil it gets, how bad creation gets, God will persevere. There’s a sense in which in this text the world doesn’t change…right? Because there’s evil and wickedness and people are slapped in the face of God with no’s all over the place and now we live these many thousands of years later and we’re all in good in following God…right? No, there’s still evil and wickedness and we slap the face of God with our no’s everyday. And yet, God’s purpose is not thwarted but it’s not thwarted because the world changes, it’s not thwarted because God changes, God changes. Let me read something for you just a minute. The text says, “…the inclination of the human heart is evil from you, but I will never again curse the ground because of humankind; never again will I wipe them all out because of that evil.” It’s almost as if God is acknowledging that at the beginning of this story he let his broken heart grieve with flood waters until it covered the earth. He let his pain and his hurt and his sorry overwhelm everything until everything was gone and now God says, never again will I let my broken heart overwhelm the world, but I’ll hold onto you and keep working until my purpose is seen through.
One last thing because it fascinates me and it points to this change in God. God has a broken heart because of evil and that heart breaks open and the world is flooded and all is destroyed except for one man, that one man and his family. And so all of the world bears the grief of God as the floodwaters of pain overwhelm us all and one man carries the faithfulness for all of us. Now the change in God. Later we’ll find one man and his will call to himself the family, but before he does so he will take on the grief of that broken heart all on himself and instead of all bearing the grief and one being faithful, one will be faithful and bear all the grief so that all the world will be saved.
If you really want to know Jesus, know the Old Testament.
|