Genesis 7:6-12, 17-24; 8:1-5, 13-19
1. Biblical truth in a sanitised world (v6-10)
This is not a kid story; it’s a brutal story. Something in us, each of us, just doesn’t want to deal with death. The Bible is the most honest and the only perfect book ever written, and at those moments of human frailty and depravity and sickness, rather than panning away, it focuses in with a close-up shot, and it forces us to see things as they truly are. And it’s doing so not to mortify us and also not just for some sort of sick pleasure, but it does so to sober us so that we’ll deal rightly with God.
2. All creation obeys God (v11-24)
The animals obey God. Noah and his family obey God. The only thing in the story that doesn’t obey God is the people. People don’t obey God. That was the problem in the beginning; it’s the problem right up to the bitter end. Forty days and forty nights, the rain comes. The water rises slowly….. This is the point when you all want me to change the topic. This is the [...Full item]
Genesis 6:9 – 7:5
Firstly Content
Given that many children’s story books greatly embroider the story it might be good to run through the salient points that the Bible gives us.
God is grieved at the evil practices of people on the earth. He decides to send a great flood to put an end to all people. He saves Noah, Noah’s family and enough animals to re-stock the earth. God does this by telling Noah to build a big boat, the Ark.
When the flood is over God promises not to curse the ground in this way ever again and puts the sign of this promise, this covenant, as a rainbow in the sky. God initiates the whole thing from the very beginning. It was not Noah’s idea to build an ark. It was God’s.
There is more about what Noah did later, but we are not looking at the full story now – just the part where God tells Noah to build the ark and he builds it.
Secondly Meaning
Isn’t it just a story? Why should it have any meaning other than a straightforward account?
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Genesis 6.1-10
A. God’s Problem
Three things in this section that are some of the most controversial interpretations in the entire Bible.
1. “The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful” – literally hot – “and they married any of them they chose.”
Some say the sons of God are angels or demons who come down and marry and impregnate women. Some say it’s demon-possessed men.
Two reasons why these sons of God are not demons.
Matthew 22:30 “At the resurrection, people will neither marry, nor be given in marriage. They will be like the angels in Heaven.”
Angels don’t get married. So it can’t be demons marrying women, because all demons are is fallen angels.
Matthew 24:37-39. “
37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to [...Full item]
Genesis 4
1. What does Eve do wrong (4.1).
a) She’s boasting. She’s saying that she will clean up the mess that she has made. That she will fix the sin that has come into the world. And what she says is, “God said a son would cure it. I made a son.” She’s banking everything on Cain, that Cain will be Jesus, and that Cain will save the world. She couldn’t be more wrong.
b) She shows favouritism. Cain is the oldest child, firstborn son, first child born in the history of the world. Big hopes, big dreams.
2. What does Cain do wrong (4.5)
Abel was a rancher, and Cain was a farmer. Those are fully acceptable, good jobs, especially for young men in that day.
Cain has been typified as the godless man. A classic outline of this chapter looks like this:
1. receives the gift of life from God (vv. 1-2) 2. fails to offer God what He requires of them (vv. 3-6). [...Full item]
1 Peter 3:1–6.
In 1 Peter 2:13ff, Peter admonishes us all to be submissive, for the Lord’s sake to every human institution. In other words, keep the speed limits, pay your taxes, and be respectful toward policemen, doctors, teachers and church leaders.
Then, following this theme, in 2:18ff he addresses the servants in the church and admonishes them to be submissive to their masters with all respect, both to the kind and to the overbearing.
Then, in 3:1–6 he instructs the wives to be submissive to their husbands, and in verse 7 he instructs husbands to live considerately with their wives.
Finally, he tells the whole church (in 3:8ff) to have unity and sympathy and love and tender-heartedness and humility toward one another, and not to return evil for evil.
"What is the root cause of a woman’s greatness in the eyes of God—the only eyes that matter?"
First, these holy women hoped in God.
Second, because they hoped in God, they were gentle and quiet spirit [...Full item]
Why don’t we talk all the time about Kingdom of God and hardly ever about ”the church”. Why are we nasty and horrible about “the church” in a way we would never be about the Kingdom of God.
It’s all a mystery! Jesus did two things in his three years of ministry. Told stories about the Kingdom of God and healed people. No wonder the crowds were numbered in their thousands. Leave healing aside for a moment, Jesus taught people about the Kingdom and they loved it!
I agree with Hybels, the church is the best hope for the world, because it best represents the presence of the Kingdom. It is where people can best taste and see that it is good.
1. Kingdom Growth
The first story is about growth of a mustard seed. The native Black mustard of Galilee was more of a weed (considered a nuisance) but it could be controlled and cultivated for its seeds to be used as a spice. The seeds themselves were [...Full item]
Matthew 5:1-12
It is an upside down kingdom:
Again and again in parables, sermons, and acts Jesus startles us. Things are not like they are supposed to be. The stories don’t end as we expected. The Good Guys turn out to be the Bad Guys. The ones we expected to receive a reward are losers. The least are the greatest. The immoral receive forgiveness and blessing. Adults become like children.
Things are just not like we think they should be. We are surprised. The kingdom surprises us again and again by turning our world upside down.
The Kingdom of God is spiritual and dynamic
The Kingdom of God was foretold, it is present, and it will come fully in the future
The Kingdom blesses us with God’s forgiveness, care, family, and Holy Spirit
We enter the Kingdom of God by obedience to the will of God, repentance, sanctification, and new birth
Therefore today we look at what it is like to live in the Kingdom. Jesus [...Full item]
Matthew 7:17-27
It is not straight forward to enter another country. E.g. In 2000 I hoped to travel to Afghanistan 18 months before 9/11. I just couldn’t get my Pakistan visa to fly to Peshawar. Or when I travelled through western Africa needed a Yellow Fever inoculation. Without the certificate, you cannot travel. Many people try to avoid paying the £60 or so by bribing local officials or risking an injection of who-knows-what!
Once in the country you are committed to living differently. For example to use its money, drive on the correct side of the road, respect its laws. It is no good saying “I’m British, I can do things the way we do at home”. It is the same with entering the Kingdom of God. We need a visa to get in, and then live as its citizens.
Summary of the Kingdom series so far:
1. It is an Upside down kingdom:
Again and again in parables, sermons, and acts Jesus startles us. Things are not [...Full item]
 DO THIS NUMBER ONE
Baptism is a one-time event. It’s a way of declaring publicly that the person being baptised is now welcome in the community of faith. Based on the grace and the love of God, they are part of us.
When Jesus was growing up, the practice of baptism was already around. If a Gentile decided to become a part of the Jewish community, that conversion could be expressed through the act of baptism. It was a way of saying, "This person, who has been an outsider, is now part of the family."
Jesus commanded his followers to do the same. His final command in the gospel of Matthew is to be baptised.
The offer of forgiveness and new life in this world and forever in the next is given only by the grace of God, only through what Jesus did for us on the cross. We receive it by trusting him. We have to respond, but there is nothing magic about the water itself. [...Full item]
If the gospel is essentially a theory of the atonement and if you accept this theory of the atonement, your sins are forgiven and when you die you will be received into heaven, there is no basis for discipleship.
By disciple I mean someone who is learning from Jesus how to lead their life as he would lead their life if he were in their place. The New Testament defines a disciple as someone who is with Jesus learning how to be more like him.
But the gospel focuses on the kingdom, that we are invited to live in the kingdom of God then the basis for discipleship becomes clear.
The new birth is the entrance into the kingdom of God. Forgiveness from sins is essential – but it is not the whole package. One of the main barriers to proper discipleship is that people see the teachings of Christ as laws that they have to obey. They are not.
They are expressions of the life that [...Full item]
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Published on: 6 May 2012 at 10:30am.