Scripture: Genesis 8:20-22 and Matthew 13:24-30
Structure:
- Introduction
- Noah’s worship
- God’s commitment
- Conclusion
Introduction:
Good morning everyone.
Let me tell you a story. Once there was an artist, a painter. He had an eye for light, the way it falls differently depending on the time of year and the time of day. Although he worked hard trying to capture the nuance of the light on his subject, he never felt like he quite did justice to the picture in his mind’s eye. But at the same time he wasn’t able to give it up. The pursuit of beauty made him even more determined.
One day the artist was asked to paint a mural on a wall for the town. He took this project seriously. After months of thinking and sketching he started painting. The scale of the mural was large but he had it finished in a week. He wouldn’t admit to it being perfect but it was certainly very good – it suited the space. Many passers-by stopped to admire the mural’s grace and message.
Sadly, one night, some vandals came and defaced the mural. The artist was deeply hurt by this. Not only had the vandals undone the time and effort he had put into the painting, they had shown contempt for him and contempt for the light. The only part of the mural not damaged was a corner where his name was. It was like the culprits wanted to mar his reputation.
The artist could not stand to look at the now grotesque image. He set to work removing the graffiti but the spray paint they had used was stubborn; it wouldn’t wash off without damaging the art work underneath. There was no way to clean the mess without destroying the mural. Only the corner with his name on it was able to be saved.
Once the wall had been washed, the artist went about repainting the mural. In doing this he knew he was making himself vulnerable to getting hurt all over again. The vandals would likely come back to ruin the new art work too. But the artist refused to be silenced. He was determined that light and beauty would prevail in the end.
Today we continue our series on Noah and the great flood. In some ways God is like the painter in the story and his creation is like the mural. Although the world God created was good, some vandals defaced it and God had little choice but to start again with Noah, the only one not tagged by evil.
Last week we heard how God remembered Noah, while Noah waited patiently for the Lord as the flood waters receded. This morning Noah and the animals are finally released from the ark. From Genesis 8, verses 20-22, we read…
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offeringson it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aromaand said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the groundbecause of humans, even thoughevery inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.And never again will I destroyall 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.”
May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.
In this passage we see Noah’s worship of the Lord and God’s commitment to repaint the mural of his creation.
Noah’s worship:
Can anyone tell me what happened on Tuesday the 28th April this year? [Wait]
That’s right, New Zealand moved from level 4 lockdown to level 3, under COVID restrictions. This meant that around 400,000 people returned to work and some restaurants opened for takeaways. I remember watching the evening news and seeing really long queues of cars snaking down the road as people waited in the drive-thru for their first taste of McDonalds in over a month.
After over a year in the ark God tells Noah he can leave; his lockdown is over. And the first thing we read that Noah does was worship God. Noah built an altar to the Lord and sacrificed some of the clean animals and birds on it.
We know from the beginning of Genesis 7 that God instructed Noah to take seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of every unclean animal. So in sacrificing some of the clean animals Noah wasn’t wiping out the species, he had spares.
We can’t be sure what constituted a clean animal or bird in Noah’s day. The Law of Moses, which defines what is clean and unclean, was not introduced until centuries after Noah so we don’t know what animals Noah sacrificed. But that is beside the point. The main thing here is that Noah’s first thought was not a Maccas run or going back to the office or anything mundane like that. His first thought was worshipping God. Noah puts God first.
Verse 21 of Genesis 8 indicates that God was pleased with Noah’s sacrifice. While Genesis 8 doesn’t explain why God was pleased, we know from elsewhere in Scripture the sorts of things God is looking for in worship.
For our worship to be pleasing to God it needs to be true. We can’t fake it with God. True worship comes from the inside out. In other words, it has its roots in our heart and its fruit in our obedient actions.
In Isaiah 29, verse 13, God criticizes the people of Isaiah’s day saying: These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.
Jesus had a similar complaint about many of the religious leaders of his day. Jesus described them as ‘white washed tombs’ – looking good on the outside but full of decay and corruption on the inside.
In John 4, verse 24, while speaking to the Samaritan woman by the well, Jesus made it clear what kind of worship God requires saying: God is Spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
Obeying God in faith is the litmus test of true, heartfelt worship. Like the prophet Micah famously said: Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstbornfor my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humblywith your God.
And that is probably why God was pleased with Noah’s sacrifice of worship, because Noah obeyed God. Not just for show, when people were looking, but from the heart when it was him alone with God.
Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross has done away with the need for animal sacrifice. We don’t need to approach God by killing a lamb or a dove. We are able to approach God through faith in Jesus.
This is not to say that our worship is without sacrifice. Our sacrificial worship of God may come in a variety of forms these days, including the money we give to the poor and to the church, as well as the time we volunteer in service to God and his people.
If you are in business, then part of your worship may cost you trade if you choose not to do business on a Sunday. I am mindful too of the way this church (Tawa Baptist) has often offered its best and brightest people to serve in church and mission work both here in NZ and overseas. The people are a church’s life blood. It is a costly sacrifice training up interns and then sending them off to be a blessing for someone else.
Noah’s worship was pleasing to God because it was true. Noah’s worship came from the inside out. It had its roots in Noah’s heart and its fruit in Noah’s obedient actions. Noah put God first, before his stomach and before his career.
God’s commitment:
It appears that Noah’s worship touched God’s heart. In verse 21, of Genesis 8, we read, The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma [of Noah’s sacrifice] and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even thoughevery inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.And never again will I destroyall living creatures, as I have done…”
The reference to cursing the ground connects with Genesis 3, after the fall of humankind, when God cursed the ground making it harder for people to grow food. God will not curse the ground again because of humans.
But the more interesting thing here is God’s commitment to the human race. In Genesis 6:5, before the flood, we read how …every inclination of the human heart was only evil all the time. Now, after the flood in Genesis 8:21, we read that …every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. This shows us the flood has not changed the human heart. Noah’s heart may be better than most but God can see that, in time, his creation will degenerate again.
God is a bit like the artist who painted the mural on the wall. Even though the human heart has not changed, even though God knows the vandals will return to deface his image, the Lord resolves to persevere with his creation. He is determined that the beauty of his grace will prevail in the end. The implication here is that God is committing himself to suffering with his creation. God is leaving himself open to more grief so that we may be saved.
Let me tell you another story. Once there was a writer. She wrote all sorts of things, from poems to short stories, to novels and even the occasional play. She was always looking for the right words to express the truth of something but often felt like her words didn’t quite do justice to the truth. Still, she couldn’t help writing. The pursuit of truth made her even more determined.
One day she wrote a play. Actually it brewed in her mind for years before pouring out on her keyboard over the course of a week. She wouldn’t admit to it being perfect but it was certainly very good – a masterpiece. Handing her play over to the cast of actors felt like handing a child over to strangers. It was an act of trust. She hoped they would look after her baby.
Some months passed while the actors rehearsed the script and the prop builders constructed the set. Finally, the opening night came. The play started well but before long it became apparent the actors didn’t know their lines. In fact, the cast had made some pretty big changes to the script and it wasn’t recognizable as her story anymore.
The writer sat in the audience heart broken. Most of the cast of the play had completely misunderstood their parts. They had taken her magnum opus and turned it into a farce. Only one actor nailed it. The play-write felt betrayed. She wanted to stand up and stop the whole show. But instead she sat through it, even though it was torture, both for her and the rest of the audience.
In some ways, God is like the writer of the play and humanity is like the cast who have forgotten their lines, misunderstood their parts and changed the script.
Returning to Genesis 8. When God resolved not to destroy humanity he was essentially making a commitment to persevere with our imperfection, at least for a period of time (although not forever). Ultimately God’s plan is to redeem his creation – to make it new and perfect again.
The kingdom of heaven is a place where all the actors understand their parts and know their lines by heart. It is a place where God’s will is done; where his script is followed and the story of our lives are given coherence and meaning.
In Ezekiel 36:26, God says through the prophet: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
In other words, God intends to give humanity a heart transplant; to remove our hard unfeeling heart (our dead heart) and give us a heart which is alive and beats for him. A heart which feels and is grieved by evil, as God’s heart is.
In Matthew 13 Jesus tells the parable of the wheat and the weeds. An enemy sows weeds among the wheat but the farmer does not uproot the weeds in case this disturbs the wheat. He allows the weeds to grow alongside the wheat until the harvest. Then at the harvest the workers separate the weeds from the wheat. The weeds are destroyed and the wheat is saved.
The parable of the wheat and the weeds is an allegory about the final judgement – the harvest represents judgement day. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of God’s kingdom, while the weeds are the people of the evil one.
There is a point of connection between this parable and God’s attitude after the flood. Namely that God is committed to redeeming what is good in his creation, even though that involves persevering with the weeds of evil for a certain period of time.
Conclusion:
The world we live in is not perfect but the good news is: this world is not all there is. God has chosen to suffer with his creation in order to redeem it. In the end, the light of God’s truth and the beauty of God’s grace will prevail.
In the meantime, God makes this commitment: 22 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
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?
What connections do you see between the story of the artist who painted the mural and the story God who created the earth?
Why do you think God was pleased with Noah’s sacrifice? What makes our worship pleasing to God?
What are the implications of God’s commitment to persevere with human beings, even though the human heart is bent toward evil?
What connections do you see between the story of the writer who penned the play and the story of God who created history?
What connections do you see between God’s attitude after the flood (in Genesis 8:21) and the parable of the wheat & weeds (in Matthew 13)?
Although this world/life is not perfect, the hope of God’s kingdom gives us something to look forward to. What can we look forward to in the fullness of God’s kingdom?
Tawa Baptist 