God’s plan to preserve

Scripture: Genesis 6:9-22

Structure:

• Introduction
• God’s plan to preserve
• Noah’s obedience of faith
• Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Abraham Lincoln once said: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.” 

I suppose the point is, work smarter, not harder. Plan ahead to give yourself the best chance of success.

Of course, those four hours of sharpening require quite a bit of patience. The temptation is to just crack on with the job using a blunt axe. But in those four hours, the wood cutter is also thinking: does this tree really need to come down? And if it does, what is the best way to bring it down safely? And once it is down, how will I use it?   

Today we continue our series on Noah and the great flood. Last week we heard about the grief God experiences as a consequence of his wayward creation. When God looked at the rudder of the human heart and saw it was set toward evil all the time his heart was filled with pain.

This morning we meet Noah and we learn what God plans to do about the mess the world is in. This is our third sermon into this series and we still haven’t got to the flood yet. In some ways it seems like God is spending a lot of time sharpening the axe. This shows the Lord (Yahweh) was not acting rashly or in the heat of the moment. He was acting carefully, with patience and control.

From Genesis 6, verses 9 to 22 we read…

⁹ This is the accountof Noah and his family.

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 corruptthe 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 wood;make rooms in it and coat it with pitchinside and out. ¹⁵ This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. ¹⁶ Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening 18 incheshigh all around.Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 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 Twoof every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kindof 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.       

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

There are two main ideas I want to highlight in this passage: God’s plan to preserve a remnant and Noah’s obedience of faith. First let’s consider God’s plan to preserve a remnant.

God’s plan to preserve:

To preserve something is to keep it safe from destruction or decay. For example, you might preserve meat by keeping it in a freezer. Or you might preserve peaches by putting them in a can. Or you might preserve bananas by slicing them up and dehydrating them into banana chips.

In Norway there is a global seed vault (in the Arctic circle) which stores hundreds of thousands of varieties of seeds. This seed vault is designed to ensure the preservation of seeds during large-scale regional or global crises.

Preserving food is one thing but people may also want to preserve their relationships. You preserve a relationship by staying in touch with that person, keeping the lines of communication open and maintaining a mutual commitment to one another’s well-being.

On the one hand, the flood story is about God’s judgment in destroying his creation because it had become corrupt and violent. But at the same time it is also about God’s very careful plan to preserve a remnant, in order to restart (or re-seed) a new creation. In fact, today’s text pays more attention to God’s plan of preservation than it does to the destruction caused by the flood. The focus is on the lengths God goes to, to save and renew his creation.

The idea of God preserving a faithful remnant is repeated throughout the Scriptures. For example, during the time of Elijah, when it seemed like the whole nation had turned its back on God, the Lord tells Elijah he has preserved 7000 people for himself who have not bowed their knee to Baal. God also preserved a faithful remnant through the Assyrian invasions of Israel and later through the Babylonian exile. [1]  

One thing we notice about God’s plan to preserve is the detail. We are told about the dimensions of the ark, the building materials, the sorts of animals that were to go into the ark, the kind of food they were to take with them and so forth. If we were to read further into Genesis chapter 7 we would come across quite a bit of repetition of this detail and we would notice some very precise dates and time frames.

All of this detail regarding God’s plan, to bring a flood and preserve a remnant, tells us a number of things about God himself:

For example, God is not in a hurry to bring judgement; he is patient and his actions are considered.

Also that God does not over react in the heat of the moment; his response is careful and measured.  

But most of all it shows God’s judgement is just and merciful.

Other ancient cultures also had a great flood as part of their collective memory. In at least one of those pagan versions of the flood story the gods (plural) brought the flood because of over population. There were too many people making too much noise and so the gods, who didn’t really care about human beings, became irritated and drowned them all. There was no justice or mercy involved in their decision. It was capricious and thoughtless. As is typical of a pagan theology, this leads one to the hopeless conclusion that life is completely random and unfair and meaningless.

The Hebrew flood story is quite different from the pagan flood stories though. The God of Israel wasn’t angry; he was grieved and in pain for his creation. The God of Israel didn’t bring the flood to control over population or to keep the noise down. God loves his creation and commanded people to be fruitful and multiply. The Lord God brought the flood to control the spread of violence. Israel’s flood story reveals a God who is different from the pagan gods of the nations. A Jewish / Christian theology leads one to the hopeful conclusion that while this life is not always fair, our God, who is just and merciful, slow to anger and full of compassion, is able to make all things new.

The other thing we notice about God’s plan to preserve a remnant is that it involves a human being. God does not act alone in preserving his creation. The Lord, who is relational, makes a covenant with Noah. In fact, God’s plan depends on Noah’s obedience of faith.

Noah’s obedience of faith:

Let me tell you a story. Once there was a wealthy business man who purchased a block of land and built a kiwi-fruit orchard on it. There was quite a bit involved in transforming the property. First he had to clear the ground of gorse and other weeds and level out the earth. Then he sowed grass seed, put in fences and shelter belts. Next came all the strainer posts and wires for training the kiwifruit vines and lastly he planted the vines themselves.

Building from scratch like that was an expensive investment. It took time and patience for the vines to grow and mature to the point they were able to bear fruit.

This business man had a good heart and wanted to run his orchard in a way that was kind to the environment, so he did it organically. Rather than chemical sprays he used companion planting and bio-diversity to control pests. And he wasn’t just a Queen Street farmer, doing all the calls and paper work from a distance. He lived in the community and walked through his orchard every day.     

Sadly, a virus got onto his property and infected one or two of the plants. Eventually almost all of the vines became infected. As the fruit matured it became evident that the plant was sick and when you tasted the fruit it was revolting. Once the virus got in there was no way to get rid of it.

The orchardist was deeply grieved over what had happened to his vines. It wasn’t so much the money he had lost. He was so rich the money didn’t matter to him. It was more the death of the dream. He had invested so much time and energy and love into it. What he had intended for good was actually doing harm. Reluctantly the owner of the orchard knew there was nothing for it – he would have to pull out all the vines and destroy them. He didn’t want to do this but what choice did he have.

As he was walking through the kiwifruit canopies thinking about this he came to a single plant. This particular vine looked different to the rest. It looked healthier somehow. Out of curiosity he tasted the fruit and it was good, like a kiwifruit is supposed to taste.

The orchardist decided then and there he would preserve a cutting from this healthy vine and use it to start a new orchard. Most men would have walked away and not bothered to risk it all again. But this man was not ready to abandon his dream.  

You can probably see the connections between my little allegory and the story of the flood. God is like the wealthy business man who builds the orchard. The orchard represents God’s creation and the vines are human beings. The diseased fruit represents the corruption and violence of human beings. While most of the vines bear bad fruit, Noah is the exception. Noah bears good fruit and so God decides to preserve Noah and his family in order to start again with a new orchard, a new creation. 

Genesis 6, verse 9, tells us that Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. This is high praise indeed. The Bible doesn’t say this about many people.

To be righteous means to live in right relationship with those around you. A righteous person is fair and just. They have a good moral compass.

The word translated as ‘blameless’ literally means to be whole or complete. So the idea here is that Noah has a whole hearted commitment to righteousness. [2] This does not mean Noah was perfect. Later on (after the flood) Noah gets drunk, but that seems to be out of character for Noah. For the most part Noah did abstain from sin.

We are told Noah walked with God, like his great grandfather Enoch. The Bible only says that of two people. Noah was a rare individual indeed. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, to walk with God means to stay close to him – near enough to have a personal conversation. Walking with God implies a relationship of intimacy and righteousness. It means following God, going where God leads, doing life God’s way.

The fact that Noah and Enoch both walked with God shows that God is not a Queen Street farmer. He is not running things remotely – he is on the earth, walking among the vines of his kiwifruit orchard.

To people of Jewish and Christian faith, Noah is a hero. But probably to the people of his own time Noah was a bit of an odd ball. A bit weird, a bit strange.[3]

Noah lived what it means to be salt & light in his world. He was distinctive, different, not bland. G.K. Chesterton makes this comment about people like Noah…

A man with a definite belief always appears bizarre, because he does not change with the world… Millions of mild black coated men call themselves sane and sensible merely because they always catch the fashionable insanity, because they are hurried into madness after madness by the maelstrom of the world.

Because Noah walked with God the Lord confided in him, telling Noah about his plan to preserve a remnant. God instructs Noah to build an ark. The Hebrew word translated as ark here is used seven times in the instructions to build the ark and seven times in the report of the subsiding waters (8:1-14). [4] This precise symmetry reveals something of the poetic artistry of the Genesis account of the flood. The only other time the same Hebrew word for ark is used in Scripture is in Exodus 2. The baby Moses was placed in a miniature ark in the river Nile.   

God tells Noah what kind of wood to use in making the ark. Older translations say it was gopher wood, but we don’t really know what gopher wood is so modern translation say it was cypress wood, which is an educated guess.

The wood is to be coated in pitch, which is a water proofing agent. God also gives Noah the dimensions for the ark: 137 metres long, 23 metres wide and 14 metres high. That’s an enormous vessel by the standards of Noah’s time. Interestingly, we still use similar dimensions for large ocean going ships today, so we know the ark would have been sea worthy.

You often see pictures of Noah’s ark with a nicely rounded keel and bow but it may have been more practical for Noah to simply make the ark in the shape of a rectangular box, sort of like a coffin.  

God does not give instructions for Noah to make a sail or a rudder, just a door in the side and some ventilation near the top. The ark is literally a container at the mercy of God and the flood waters. God is not asking Noah to be a sailor but he is asking Noah to be a carpenter and a zoo keeper.

In verse 18 God says to Noah, “…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…”

This is the first time in the Bible that we find the word covenant. A covenant is a sacred agreement entered into by two parties who already know each other. A covenant is not supposed to be broken, ever, but if it is broken then certain negative consequences result.    

God made covenants with other people throughout history as well. He made a covenant with Abraham, with the people of Israel, with king David and, through Jesus, he makes a covenant with us. Whenever we share communion we remember our covenant with God. The rainbow in the sky is the sign of God’s covenant with humanity and the rest of creation, through Noah. Likewise, communion is the sign of God’s covenant with believers, through Christ.

In verses 19-21 of Genesis 6, Noah learns why he is to make such a large ark; it isn’t just for him and his family, it’s like a seed vault for two of every kind of bird and animal as well as every kind of food that is eaten.  

After God has spoken, we read in verse 22 of Genesis 6 that Noah did everything just as God commanded him. This phrase is repeated again a few verses later in chapter 7. The writer of the flood story wants to highlight Noah’s obedience of faith.

By obedience of faith I mean trust in God; taking God at his word and acting on that trust in real and practical ways.

One of the observations made by pretty much every commentator is that Noah is silent throughout the account of the flood. Noah doesn’t say anything the whole time until after the flood is finished.

Noah does not ask God any questions, nor does he intercede with God for the people around him. Apparently he agrees with God that things have got out of hand. Noah doesn’t complain while he is stuck on the smelly ark for over a year, nor does he offer any words of lament for the people who have died. He doesn’t even speak words of thanksgiving or praise when the ordeal is finally over. He simply sacrifices some animals to God without saying anything. 

The only time we hear Noah open his mouth is after he gets drunk and wakes up with a hangover in Genesis 9. Clearly, Noah’s actions speak louder than his words, such is the character of his faith.

In considering Noah’s obedience of faith we are mindful of the cost of that obedience. God did not build the ark for Noah. He told Noah to build it himself. We are not told how long it took, but it must have taken a sustained effort over many years. Noah would have had to cut down large trees, mill them, coat them in pitch, transport the timber to the building site and then construct the ark. Presumably he got his sons to help him, but even so, it is a lot of work by hand.

It’s not like Noah could drive down to Bunnings to buy a kitset and put it together with power tools. Nor is it like the film Evan Almighty where God delivers the building supplies to Evan’s house. Noah’s boat building was hard graft, just as our life of faith can be hard graft at times.

Noah reminds us of another carpenter, the carpenter of Nazareth.  In Matthew 13:44 Jesus tells a pithy little parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”

Jesus’ parable here illustrates Noah’s obedience of faith. Noah risked everything on God’s word and it resulted in his salvation as well as the salvation of his family and the birds and animals.

Conclusion:

It’s interesting to me that God involved Noah the way he did. It shows that God works from the inside to renew his creation. He doesn’t fix things from the outside (like a mechanic working on a car). No, God gets small, he gets detailed, and works through a human being to preserve a remnant.      

By doing it this way, God was giving humanity a choice: whether to live or die. Noah chose life. What will we choose?

Let’s stand and sing Cornerstone as we prepare for communion.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

• If you have six hours to chop down a tree, why might you spend the first four hours sharpening the axe?

• What are some practical things we can do to preserve our relationships with others? Is there any relationship in particular you think might benefit from a bit of preserving at the moment?

• Why do you think the writer of the flood story in Genesis spends so much time focusing on God’s plan to preserve a remnant of his creation?

• What might God’s detailed instructions to Noah show us about God?

• What does it mean that Noah was righteous and blameless? How do you think Noah would have been perceived by the people of his day?

• What do we mean by the term ‘obedience of faith’? How did Noah work out his obedience of faith? How is God calling you to work out your obedience of faith?

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[1] Refer Bruce Waltke, Genesis, page 157.

[2] Refer Bruce Waltke, Genesis, page 133.

[3] Refer John Walton, NIVAC Genesis, page 332.

[4] Bruce Waltke, Genesis, page 135.