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Matthew 8:24-27
24 Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. 25 The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” 26 He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. 27 The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”
Flood and Promise
This morning we will cover the Flood or as many know it, Noah’s Ark. Before we delve into this I have a question for you this morning. Why didn’t Noah do any fishing while on the Ark? You would think that catching fish would have been a good way to add to their diet while they waited for the waters to recede but Noah didn’t do any fishing. How do we know this? Because he only had two worms!
We’re doing things a little different this morning. As you can see we have several readings from Genesis. I will be reading them during the sermon rather than before.
Let’s review what happened before the Flood. In the beginning God created the world, the animals and humanity. God looked at everything He had created and said that it was very good. Creation fell when Adam and Eve trusted the serpent more than they trusted God and ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. Through them sin entered the world. The world that God called good is now broken. God cursed the ground and put Adam and Eve out of the Garden and they had to work in order to eat. In time Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel. Cain slew Abel and murder entered the world. Cain’s descendents multiplied and filled the earth. Adam and Eve had another son, Seth and he also had a multitude of descendents.
We are now many generations past Adam and Eve. Things are not going well on earth. God is grieved. Genesis 6:6-7 says, “And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the LORD said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created — people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
God was grieved to His heart. He wasn’t angry, He wasn’t in a rage, He was grieved, filled with sorrow that the wickedness of humanity was so great and their every thought was evil. God is not unemotional as some might think, He felt the pain and anguish which sin had introduced into His creation. God created us in love. We turned from God in the Garden and He sent us out into the world. Now the whole world is so corrupted by humanity that God decides to destroy them.
There is one piece of light in the darkness of sin that covers the earth. There is one righteous man, Noah. Genesis. 6:8-9 tells us, “Noah found favor in the sight of the LORD.” “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.” Working through Noah God plans a way to destroy the wickedness but still save humanity along with the animals and birds. God has Noah build an ark. We will now read Genesis 6:12-22.
Genesis 6:12-22 12 And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. 13 And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. 14 Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 15 This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 16 Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17 For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19 And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 20 Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. 21 Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them.” 22 Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.”
We aren’t familiar with cubits as a measurement. In case you’ve ever wondered how large the ark was, it measured 450ft long by 75ft wide by 45ft high. That’s the length of one and a half football fields and about seven feet wider than one. It’s the height of a three story house.
Noah, his family and the animals are sealed up safe in the ark. God caused rain to fall for forty days and forty nights. Genesis 7:11 says, “on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.”
In many ways we can see this as the reversal of creation. Listen to the account of the second day of creation from the first chapter of Genesis. 6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning–the second day. 9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. (Gen 1:6-10)
What existed before the second day of creation is often called the primordial sea. God separated the water under from the water above and so created sky, land and sea. In the flood we are told, “the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.” In other words the water under and above came together again and the land ceased to be. God reversed what He had done.
Genesis 7 tells us that “every living thing on earth was wiped out…only Noah was left and those with him in the ark.
The waters rose for one hundred and fifty days; that’s five months. Genesis 8 begins with these words. “But God remembered Noah and all the animals that were in the ark and God made a wind to blow over the earth and the waters subsided.” Eventually the earth was dry again and Noah, his family and the animals were allowed to leave the ark. The first thing Noah did on leaving the ark was to worship God and give thanks that he had been kept safe in the ark. We pick up now at Genesis 9:8.
Genesis 9:8-15 8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
God’s covenant is with Noah and his descendents. It extends to the animals and birds as well. It includes us. God promised that there would never again be a flood that would destroy the earth. The rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant with us. God promises to remember His covenant which He made with Noah because of God’s great love and mercy.
In the same way that God brought the Flood and caused it to recede we see in our reading from Matthew that Jesus also has control over the winds and waves. Just as God saved Noah so Jesus saved the disciples when their boat was threatened. Jesus also saves us. We are not saved by the old covenant God made with Noah. We are saved by the new covenant. Jesus saves us from a life of sin and death and brings us into the new covenant that was sealed in His blood that he shed on the cross.
Let’s consider Noah for a moment. There are two things that I want us to notice about Noah this morning. He was a righteous man. Hebrews 11:7 says this, “By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith.” We are declared righteous through our faith in Jesus Christ. We are brought into right relationship with God through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, by faith, which is a gift from God, we are justified and made righteous in God’s eyes. We are righteous like Noah.
Second, Noah made himself available to God. God said build an ark and Noah built the ark. God said get two animals of every kind and Noah did. God said go into the ark and Noah went. Whatever God told Noah to do, Noah did. He was available.
What does it mean to make ourselves available to God? When we say, “Here I am Lord, use me” what does that mean? It means that we are surrendering our will to God’s will. Jesus said to God, His Father, “not my will, but yours be done.” It means we are putting the things of God ahead of our own wants and desires. When we give up these things we make room in our lives for God to use us, we make ourselves available. If we want to do this we need to start with a deep relationship with Jesus. Consider Noah’s relationship with God. He obviously spent time listening to God. Genesis 6:9 says Noah walked with God. That’s the relationship I want to have with God, that’s how close I want to be to God. I want it to be like I am walking with Him throughout the day. Do you want this too? Start with prayer, deep prayer. Not the type of prayer we use so often where we simply bring a list to God of what we want Him to do for us, who we want Him to heal; but prayer where we take time to praise and adore God, to experience awe in His presence to become aware of His majesty and His love, where there is silence, room for God to speak. It probably won’t happen immediately, but bit by bit, as we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. As we make ourselves available, God will use us.
One final point. God kept Noah, his family and all the animals safe in the ark. We tend to think ark means boat but it doesn’t. It means chest or box, a container in which to keep something safe. The same word occurs only one other place in the Bible. Our translations tell us that Moses was placed in a basket but the Hebrew word used there is actually the same word used for what Noah built, there we translate as ark but an ark is not a boat. Just as Noah was safe in the ark, Moses was kept safe from Pharaoh. Doesn’t God keep all of us safe in our own arks, made not of wood as Noah’s was or reeds as Moses’ was but an ark made of God’s love? We often say we are held safe in God’s hands. We could say instead that we are safe in the ark of God’s love. The storms will come in life, we may be battered about as Noah’s ark was in the Flood but we remain safe in the ark of God’s love. We are held secure in the sure knowledge that we are loved by God; adopted into His family as His beloved sons and daughters through the new covenant that Jesus forged on the cross. We have the promise of eternal life.
Let us pray. God of covenant and promise, you set a bow in the sky to remind us that you will never again forsake your creation. Make us ever mindful of your promise, so that we might honor our covenant with you. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
There is a well-known book titled, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. This morning let me suggest another: Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Noah:
Don’t miss the boat.
Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark.
Stay fit. When you’re 600 years old, someone may ask you to do something big.
Don’t listen to critics; just do the job that needs to be done.
Build your future on high ground.
For safety’s sake, travel in pairs.
Speed isn’t always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs.
When you’re stressed, float a while.
Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
No matter the storm, when you are with God, there’s always a rainbow waiting.
We may smile at these statements, but do you know something? What God really wanted Noah and his descendents to know is not mentioned in the list. God told Noah immediately after he left the ark about the conditions under which he and his descendents were to live. Unfortunately, most Sunday school lessons and adult bible studies rarely deal with any of the stipulations of the covenant God made with humanity through Noah. All we learn and remember about the flood story was the sign of the covenant – namely the rainbow; nothing about its content.