These are the generations of man...

Notices

Welcome to new teachers:

Paul

Ellie

Soojin

Team 3 vision - go through Bible verses

Student leadership - not as scary as it sounds!

Servant leadership and loving leadership. Christ was a leader, but he wasn’t a leader that was power hungry and he wasn’t an oppressive leader. He was a servant leader - the classic picture being when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. So we want you as leaders to take this opportunity to actually find ways to serve and love your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Running team 3 service - starting off the service each week, introducing the notices

Liaising with teachers for team 3 events. Brainstorm ideas together for Team 3 activities. This means that students will be able to have input in what we do in Team 3 so it is more enjoyable for you and we can do what the students actually want to do.

Volunteering opportunities eg, helping look after team 1/2 children in the church camp in July.

Prayer for Cambodia mission trip

Prayer next week: Eugene

Birthdays for January and February: Rachel & Roa

Introduction

Does everyone know the story of Noah’s flood?

The book of Genesis has some of the best known stories in the Bible. They are so well known that many of the stories and instructions contained within Genesis have actually shaped Western culture and civilisation. That’s why even many non-Christians are familiar with many of the stories in Genesis. So I’m going to test your knowledge of the stories in Genesis with a little emoji game!

Noah’s flood

Adam and Eve

Creation (Gen chap 1)

Cain and Abel

Tower of Babel

But Genesis is not just a collection of entertaining stories. Genesis is a collection of the real history of Israel, and teaching, and instruction, to tell us: (1) who God is, and (2) who we are.

And in today’s passage of Genesis 6, it particularly focuses on who we are in terms of our sinfulness, and it explains why we are deserving of God’s holy and righteous judgement. But at the same time, we also see God’s love, mercy, and grace, that always goes alongside his judgement.

So let’s read the verses together.

Read Genesis 6:1–8 “1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. 5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”

(1) Sin - idolatry

So how does the passage describe mankind? Well as you might have already guessed, not that positively! Let’s read verses 1-2 again - Genesis 6:1–2 “1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.”

Now it’s not exactly clear what it means when the Bible says the ‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of man’, but whoever they are, these verses tell us that these relationships between the two groups were bad and sinful. And the reason for that becomes clearer when we see what this verse echoes. Doesn’t this verse sounds familiar? It’s very similar to Genesis 3:6 “6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”

Just as Adam and Eve looked upon the fruit of the tree in the garden of Eden and saw that it saw that it was good, the sons of God saw the daughters of man and saw that they were attractive. And just as Adam and Eve ate the fruit even though they were not meant to, the sons of God entered into relationship with with the daughters of man even though they were not meant to. This verse is showing us the disobedience of man. It represents our desire to do what we want, rather than what God wants. Instead of listening to God and following his commands, we listen to ourselves and do what we want. And when we do that, we take God’s place in our lives. Sin fractures our relationship with God, and it corrupts our heart, so that we push God away further and further away from our lives, because we don’t want anything to do with Him, and rather we just do what we want to do. This is, idolatry

And what is the consequence of that? Just as death entered into humanity when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, if we read Genesis 6:3, we see something similar where God takes his life giving Spirit away and human life is cut short - “3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.””

So these verses show us that sin is disobedience to God, which comes from a heart of idolatry - wanting to do what we want, rather than what God wants.

(2) Sin - our very nature

But then these verses go on to show us even further what sin is.

If you read Genesis 6:5, this is one of the most critical judgments pronounced on human behaviour in the Bible: “5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Doesn’t this verse remind you of another verse earlier in the Bible? Read Genesis 1:31 “31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”

Whereas in Genesis 1, God ‘sees’ that ‘everything’ is ‘good’, here God ‘sees’ that ‘wickedness of man’ is ‘great’ and ‘every’ thought is ‘evil’.

And it talks about how every thought of man’s heart was ‘only evil, continually’. The ‘heart’ in English usually just refers to our emotions - what we feel. But in the language of the Bible, when it talks about ‘heart’, it is not just referring to emotions, but the heart is the source of all that makes us who we are: our thoughts, our will, our minds. The verse is essentially saying that everything that humans produce - our thoughts, our will, our deeds - is evil. And not just evil, but evil continually evil and greatly evil. This is the complete opposite to our original creation - at the beginning, God saw that we were ‘very good’. But now, because of sin, our very nature, our very core and being of who we are, has become evil.

So sin is not just bad actions. It is not just doing bad things. It is so much deeper than that. Sin has infiltrated into the very nature of who we are, into our very being, affecting every thought, emotion, action, everything that we produce.

These verses completely expose who we really are. We do not just do sinful things, but we are sinful beings. Because sin is not just bad actions, but has become part of who we are, that means we cannot escape from sin. No matter how many good things we try and do, it won’t free us from sin, because sin is part of us. This can be very hard to accept, because we often think that we are quite good. But if we examine ourselves really closely, is that really true?

Look at human history: it’s full of wars, conflict, natural disasters.

Look at the people around you! The person next to you! Are they truly perfectly good?

And this is not a time to point fingers because what’s even more important is looking at ourselves. Looking deep inside our own hearts, can we confidently say that we are perfectly good people? Have we been loving as Jesus has commanded? Are we truly other-person centered or are we self-centered?

The truth is, all of us, without exception have hearts that reject God, are self-centered, and self-worshipping.

So sin has left us in a state of evil as verse 5 describes. And evil is deserving of judgement. Let’s read Genesis 6:6–7 “6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.””

The consequence of sin is God’s righteous and holy judgement. And the way God judged humanity was by the great flood, which we will look at in the following chapters.

(3) Hope in the darkness

But even in this terrible judgement, we find a glimmer of hope. We can find God’s love and mercy that always goes alongside his judgement. Read Genesis 6:8 “8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” Noah wasn’t the perfect picture of a good human being - we see later in the story where even Noah falls short and sins. But despite that, in God’s grace, he chooses Noah and shows mercy by saving him and his family in the ark.

Alongside God’s judgement, we always see this love and mercy of God, because just as God is committed to holy justice by carrying out judgement, He is also completely committed in keeping His promises to save us and return us back to him. God is not only a judge, but a loving father.

This is who our God is. Someone who is perfectly just so that no evil will go unpunished, but also someone who is perfectly loving so that even though we are evil and wicked, He still finds a way to keep his loving promises to us. And the way God fulfills both his judgement, and his promises of love, is through His son Jesus Christ. Remember earlier how I said that we cannot escape sin because it has become a part of us? That means we need to look for something outside of ourselves for help. And that perfect help is Jesus Christ - this is why we must cling to the name of Jesus Christ, because he is the one that took the judgement that we deserved, and saves us and breaks us free from our sinful nature. It is only by His power, that sin no longer becomes part of us, and rather Jesus’ righteousness and goodness becomes part of us instead.

Opening song:

You are life - Hillsong

Ending song:

Jesus paid it all

https://www.reawakenhymns.com/jesuspaiditall

Study questions:

(1) When you think of sin, what do you think of? Is it just sinful actions, or is it something deeper than that?

(2) Sin deeply grieves God. When you sin, how does it make you feel? Read James 4:8-9. What is the appropriate response to sin?

(3) Since we cannot escape sin, what is our only hope? Why?