Finding Christ in the Flood

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

We’re walking the road to Emmaus together, looking for Christ in the Old Testament. This morning we’re in Genesis 6 – the story of Noah and the ark.

When I planned this series, I didn’t know there was going to be a deadly flood in Texas the week prior to this sermon. I recognize that this topic is heavy under the circumstances, but it also gives us an opportunity to reflect on human tragedy and God’s response to it.

The story of Noah is not primarily about Noah. It’s about God. It’s a story that corrects our understanding of God, because we tend to think of God in extremes.

A lot of people think of God as a gentle grandfather who would never hurt anyone, no matter what they do.

On the other hand, some people read the Old Testament, and they picture God as a cruel dictator who enjoys punishing innocent people. But neither of those characterizations of God is accurate.

Let’s begin reading, Genesis 6:1 –

1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them,

2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.

3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

I seriously considered skipping these verses and jumping straight to verse 5, because we have no idea what it means. Who were the sons of God? Who were the daughters of men? Who were the Nephilim?

There are plenty of theories you can read about later, but I decided it is necessary context for one reason. Regardless of who these people were, the great sin that led to God’s decision to drown humanity was a defilement of marriage. The people were doing something involving marriage that God had forbidden. I just wanted us to notice that.

5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Based on a straightforward reading of the genealogical record in Genesis 5, Adam had only been dead about 100 years before Noah was born. It also tells us that about 1600 years passed between the events of Genesis 3 and Genesis 6.

During that time, the earth has become populated with people. By most estimates, there were now millions of people roaming the earth.

But God’s assessment of the population was that they were wicked. His creation has gone from “very good” in Genesis 1 to “very corrupt” a few pages later. This sin is not localized… it’s global.

Notice also that God looks beyond outward behavior. He’s looking at the heart motives of the people and it points to a condition, not an event. Sin now touches every part of their lives. There’s no “off switch”.

This verse is theologically significant. Most of the doctrines of the New Testament can be found in seed form in Genesis. Here we find the doctrines of original sin and total depravity.

Sin has been passed down generation to generation from Adam. We also discover that humans are dealing with a sinful nature. This doesn’t mean we are always as bad as we can possibly be, but that our hearts are corrupted by sin.

That’s the condition of humanity and here’s the consequence.

6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

This is an emotionally intense verse, and we need to handle it with care. The word regret doesn’t mean that God made a mistake. Instead, it’s a word that expresses relational grief. God is filled with deep sorrow when He looks on mankind.

This is meant to show us the devastating contrast between the goodness of creation and the corruption of sin. God is grieving. He’s mourning the loss of His children.

That grief is not a weakness. In fact, it shows us God’s heart. As Stephen Wilson Jr. writes, “Grief is only love that’s got no place to go.”

What this shows us is that God has already lost humanity. From His perspective, they were already lost. That helps explain the next verse.

7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

This is one of the most severe statements of divine judgment in the Bible. God says He is going to wipe away every living creature. What do we do with this? What does it tell us about God?

First, I think it is important to recognize that God’s judgment is not arbitrary or impulsive. God has watched evil grow on the earth for more than 1600 years. And now that he decided to pass judgment, he waits another 120 years while Noah builds the ark. That’s not impulsive.

Second, we should notice that our sin affects creation. We are not the only ones who suffer because of sin. The animals… the plants… the weather… everything has been corrupted by Adam’s choice.

Third, we should consider how seriously God views our sin problem. The same God who breathed life into man is now promising to wipe him away – not in spite, but in sorrow… with one exception.

8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

This is the first mention of grace in the Bible. The word “favor” here is a word that means undeserved kindness. God set his grace upon Noah, even though Noah didn’t deserve special treatment.

Most of you probably know the story that follows. God tells Noah that He plans to send a flood. He commands Noah to build a giant boat with very specific dimensions, roughly the size of the FedEx Forum. God will use this boat to save Noah’s family along with an assortment of plants and animals to help repopulate the earth after the flood.

The chapter ends with this statement:

22 Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.

And then the flood came, and God did exactly what He said He would do. He drowned almost everyone on the planet. Men, women, children, animals… only Noah’s family received mercy.

If you doubt that this happened, you should know that about 100 different people groups from all around the planet have flood stories in their ancient histories. There’s also plenty of geological evidence to back it up.

The flood was basically an uncreation and if we are going to be honest, we don’t really understand it. It feels heavy handed. It feels like an overreaction. And the reason it feels that way is because we misunderstand the nature of sin. Sin is nothing less than rebellion against God’s law.

Dorothy Sayers uses an analogy to help us think about laws. She explains the difference between the law of the stop sign and the law of fire. The law of the stop sign says that when you are driving and you come to a red octagon that reads “Stop”, you are required to stop. You can choose to run the stop sign, and you may get away without anything bad happening at all. But you may get a speeding ticket, or worse you could end up in a terrible accident. How serious you choose to take the sign is up to you.

But there is another law called the law of fire. This law says do not stick your hand in an open flame and leave it there. If you do, you’ll be burned. There is no maybe; you will be burned. If you don’t take this law seriously all the time, then you are foolish.

God’s law is a law of fire, not a law of stop signs. Violating God’s law is direct rebellion and unlike running a stop sign, you will most certainly die a tragic and horrible death if you disobey God.

There are no degrees to this law. Any violation means death. The flood was humanity’s wake-up call. The story is meant to be disturbing, not because of what God chooses to do, but because of how rebellious humans chose to be.

But what do we do with Noah? Why did God save Noah? Chapter 6 describes Noah as a righteous man, blameless in his generation. But if you keep reading, becomes an alcoholic in chapter 9. You certainly don’t get the impression that Noah was special or that he deserved judgment less than anyone else!

Ecclesiastes 7:20 says:
Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Noah was not the exception. So why did God save Noah?

On the one hand, Noah was saved because He trusted God’s Word. Hebrews 11 says that Noah acted in faith. He trusted God when no one else did. But that didn’t make Noah sinless. Noah still deserved the flood and that’s the crazy part!

God saved Noah from His own wrath! The flood waters that drowned humanity also carried Noah’s family to safety. But why?

This is where we need the help of Jesus to understand. This is where we need the resurrected Jesus to open our eyes on the Road to Emmaus.

By saving Noah, God was preserving a family tree that would eventually bring Jesus into the world. The flood Noah should have drowned in was poured out on Jesus Christ. And we find more evidence of this in the story.

Remember last week, at the end of Genesis 3, God covered Adam and Eve with animal skins – something that would require the death of the animals to make.

Watch what happens as soon as Noah and his family exit the ark onto dry land.

18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him.

19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.

They’ve been trapped inside for over a year! But I don’t imagine the scenery, or the smell was pleasant as they exited the ark. The remnants of death and destruction were everywhere. But watch what happens.

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

When Noah finally gets off the boat, the first thing he does is worship. But his worship involved sacrificing some of the animals he just kept alive for over a year!

The world has just suffered incredible loss of life, not just humans but animals as well. And then Noah immediately kills more animals! And God is pleased by it!

21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.

22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

Then God makes a covenant with Noah to that affect and creates the first rainbow as a sign of His covenant with Noah. A covenant is a divine pact or a blood oath, something we’re going to talk a lot about in this series.

Notice that God makes this covenant in full knowledge that man will go on sinning. And it’s here that we find the hope of grace – that there is a way for humans to not get what we deserve.

God here is resolving not to give up on the world. He sees our rebellion and He is responding with grace. There is a way to find favor with God.

On the Road to Emmaus, Jesus told His disciples that all the Scriptures point to Him—including this story. The flood wasn’t just an act of judgment. It was also an act of preservation, to ensure that the line leading to Jesus would endure. The ark didn’t just carry Noah—it carried a promise.

And now, we live on the other side of that promise fulfilled. We don’t look to a wooden boat for our rescue. We look to a wooden cross. Jesus is the better Noah—He entered the flood of judgment for us, so that we could be lifted up and carried safely to dry ground.

This story forces us to come to terms with the seriousness of sin. But it also gives us the clearest picture so far in the Bible of grace—grace that chooses, grace that saves, and grace that endures in spite of our sin.