Don’t Miss the Boat – Take a Stand
Genesis 6:9-22 (New International Version) May 29, 2005
9 This is the account of Noah.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress [a] wood; . . . 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."
22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
7:24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days
8:14-19
By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
15 Then God said to Noah, 16 "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it."
18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the ark, one kind after another.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though [a] every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
22 "As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease."
CCI: God will save his people.
(Pick up the lectern and walk back and forth with it for a while.) You may be wondering what I am doing, well sometimes in this world you just have to take a stand.
From today’s headlines from The New York Times, BBC, Associated Baptist Press and Bay City Times.
∙ Mr Annan spoke to people affected by the ongoing humanitarian crisis and said the situation was unacceptable. At least 180,000 people have died and two million have fled their homes. When he visited the Kalma refugee camp, near the town of Nyala, which is home to 120,000 people. Tribal leaders told him that in recent months 56 people had been killed in the camp and 580 women had been sexually assaulted.
∙ A Japanese man has confirmed that his older brother was the dead man pictured on an Iraqi militant group's website.
∙ Bulgaria's president has visited children with HIV in Libya, during a trip aimed at saving Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death for infecting them. President Parvanov toured the hospital in the city of Benghazi - where the outbreak occurred in 1999. Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were convicted of deliberately giving tainted blood to 430 children. Some 50 are believed to have died. Libya's Supreme Court is due to rule on an appeal by the six on Tuesday. The nurses and the doctor - who have spent six years in jail - say they were initially tortured into making false confessions.
∙ Police in Pakistan have released a photo of the man they say bombed a Muslim shrine in Islamabad on Friday. At least 20 people died in the blast at the Bari Imam shrine near the diplomatic quarter in the Pakistan capital, and more than 50 were injured.
∙ Iraqi police and army units prepared to launch a massive crackdown today in Baghdad that they have codenamed "Operation Lightning," according to defense and security officials.
∙ A small Baptist church in North Carolina posts the following on their church sign: “The Koran should be flushed.” The pastor, who has since apologized, was quoted as saying, “I knew it would be offensive, the truth at times hurts.”
∙ An American flag, suspended at half-staff, stirred quietly in the afternoon breeze outside Gladwin High School. From here on, the school's vice principal, Linda M. Stodolak, believes the red, white and blue banner will symbolize something much more personal to her community this time of year. "Memorial Day in Gladwin will never be the same again," she said. More than 1,000 people packed the auditorium at the school Friday to honor 2002 graduate Brad A. Wentz, the 21-year-old Army Reserve sergeant who died seven days earlier when his convoy came under attack in Iraq.
The earth was corrupt
“As in the days of Noah.” Jesus spoke these words to talk about the last days. In the days of Noah, the whole earth was corrupt. Even those who were of the line of Seth, the godly son of Adam, had become corrupt. Any thing people could do to grow in power, they would do. They would compromise their beliefs and lay aside their standards so that they might become known as great in the world. The headlines I just shared could have been in any paper in Noah’s day.
God had created the world as a place for his creation to live in joy and peace. The account of the garden of Eden, which was built for the first man and woman, is a picture of what God desired for his creation. Yet time after time, the story in Genesis is the same. God makes something good, people disobey and rebel against God, God punishes the sin to restore the good God had created, and people rebel in sin once again.
And clearly our world is no different. The headlines that shout of international violence and destruction are echoed every day in the private lives of people we meet. Violence in Bagdad is met with violence in the streets of Saginaw. Abuse of prisoners in Abu Grab in the name of security is repeated in abuse of children and wives in the name of discipling our own homes.
One description of sin in the Bible is “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” In other words, they were all sincere, so it should be OK. But this passage tells us that God despises a world that is filled with violence.
Noah was a blameless man
However, in the midst of the violence and corruption that filled the world, there was a bright spot.
Throughout the bible, there are only 3 people who are identified as blameless. They are Noah, Job and King Asa. Most of us are acquainted with Noah, and we know something of Job, but King Asa is unknown to us. What does it mean to say Noah was blameless? I think it means that he lead his family faithfully in the worship of God. No matter what anyone else thought, Noah remained faithful to God. Does that mean he never sinned? No, it meant that while the world was setting it’s own standard for right and wrong, Noah clung to God’s revealed standards. To be blameless is to choose to follow God despite the crowd.
Noah persevered and was faithful though all around him . John Piper wrote, “We need to be coronary Christians, not adrenal Christians.
“Not that adrenaline is bad. It gets me through lots of Sundays. But it lets you down on Mondays. The heart is another kind of friend. It just keeps on serving—through good days and bad days, happy and sad, high and low, appreciated and unappreciated. It never lets me down. It never says, "I don't like your attitude, Piper, I'm taking a day off." It just keeps humbly lubb-dubbing along.
“Coronary Christians are like the heart in the causes they serve. Adrenal Christians are like adrenaline—a spurt of energy and then fatigue. What we need in the cause of racial justice and justice for the unborn is coronary Christians. Marathoners, not just sprinters. People who find the pace to finish the race.” (John Piper, "Coronary Christians," World (2-23-02))
And that is what it means to be blameless as was Noah. It means taking a stand against the world that would push you into it’s mold. It means taking a stand for what is right in a world that suggests you can do whatever is right in your own eyes.
Ruby Bridges is the true story of the 6-year-old black girl who became the first person of color in the U.S., by federal law, to attend an all-white school in 1960 segregationist New Orleans, Louisiana. Ruby and five other black children were chosen because of their high intelligence, but only Ruby had the courage and faith to face overwhelming social adversity.
In one scene, Ruby's father is concerned about the danger she will face when she walks through the angry crowd of segregationists to enter her school. But her mother insists things can only get better if they make them better. "Honey," she tells him, "we can't be afraid."
As Ruby's mother kisses her good night, she says, "You know Momma's got to go back to work tomorrow. And Daddy's working. So do you think you can be a brave girl and go to school by yourself with the big men?"
Ruby stops smiling and hesitates for a moment, clutching her doll closer. Finally she shrugs a shoulder and agrees, "Okay."
Her mother tries to reassure her, saying, "You know Jesus faced the mob too, baby. Just like you. You know what he did? He prayed for them. Because the Bible says, 'Bless them that persecute you. Bless and curse not.'"
The next day an angry crowd in front of the school waves Confederate flags and hollers, "Go on home!" Bravely, Ruby steps out of the car with the four federal agents that surround her. One of them reminds her, "Ruby, remember what I told you. Keep looking straight ahead." As they walk through the crowd, one woman spits on the ground; another yells that she is going to hang Ruby. Ruby's eyes are fixated on a point by the front door as she recalls her parents' words of encouragement: "You are Daddy's brave little girl. Remember, God loves you, Ruby." Suddenly, Ruby is startled as a thrown tomato explodes on a post by the front door. They enter the doors and dismayed staff members eye her disapprovingly. (Citation: Ruby Bridges (Disney, 1998), directed by Euzhan Palcy; submitted by Jerry De Luca, Montreal West, Quebec, Canada)
Yet Ruby Bridges persisted and a our nation entered a new era. Taking a stand can be costly.
We live in a world that is like the world of Noah, evil, corruption and violence are all around us. But God has chosen to deal with this world in a new way, rather than destroy it, God has chosen to redeem the world. Why? Only because he loves us so deeply. After the flood, God said, "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though [a] every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” Today, God invites us to join with him in the work of redemption that has begun. Joining God means first opening your heart to His forgiving and cleansing work. Admit that you, too, are inclined to evil in your very being, and admit that you need God’s grace and strength in order to live differently. And when you do, you too can take a stand for justice, together we can take a stand against corruption, we can take a stand against violence and we can join together to take a stand for grace and truth. That is what it means to be blameless in this world, it means to pursue God’s goals with all our energy, it means to be Christ’s presence in this community.
LET US PRAY
