Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning leaf River Baptist Church.

Good morning those of you that are joining us online as part of our extended spiritual family.

Good morning kids of LRBC, right now you get to gather together with your teacher there in the back of the room and go back to your class.

I know that you will be blessed as we have such great kids teachers here at LRBC.

Listen, if you are interested in learning about kids ministry please feel free to reach out to Beth, or Raina, or Donna.

I know they would love to connect with you about kids ministry.

Hey, last week we really started looking at Noah’s Ark.

I mean we’ve really been looking at it for a couple of weeks, but last week we got to see the reality of a man who obeyed God and faithfully built an ark, even though he didn’t really understand why.

We saw that Noah trusted God above all else.

I hope you found that interesting, when we were looking at Noah’s faithfulness.

You know we talked about how Noah faithfully built and ark, how Noah trusted God’s covenant, and then how Noah trusted God to gather the animals.

You know we talked about Noah trusting God’s faithfulness, but Noah still had to do his part and fulfill his responsibility of gathering the animals that God was sending.

Anyway, when we were discussing that last week I made the statement that there are many times that my head goes faster than my body, and that I am grateful for a wife who keeps me alive by saying, “stop!”.

I think I used the phrase that, “My head writes checks that my body can’t cash."

Now this was all done as I talked about Noah trusting God’s faithfulness.

I mentioned that God was able to protect and guide Noah, but it was Noah’s responsibility to trust God.

Well, anyway, I want to tell you a little story about myself.

Last week I recieved a text message from my lovely daughter, and in this message was a picture of a mechanical bull…We talked back and forth and I mentioned that part of me wanted to go down and ride this bull myself.

Her response was, “You should.

reminder of the good old days.”

Ummmmm.....challenge accepted....Well, what happened next was Beth saying, “Stop!” and me of course not listening to her, I did not do my part, and instead decided that I needed to go ride this bull with or without her approval.

I was about to sneak out of the house to go ride this bull when Beth caught me and decided to go with me.

Anyway, most of you have now seen the video, and Im not going to show that now, but here is a picture to detail that I did not in fact ride this bull…I mostly slid around this bull.

You see, my head wrote a check that my body could not possible cash.

Of course the result of my not listening to my wife was a knee that has been hurting ever since that moment.

Why do I tell you this story…well, first because it was sadly hilarious because I actually saw my 18 yr old self doing this and forgetting that I am 42 and over 275 lbs…But, there is another reason that I tell you that story.

You see, sometimes God illustrates his word to us so clearly so that we can understand what he is telling us.

This story that I just told you actually helps to illustrate that we are responsible for our own actions, and that even if those actions seem insane, we are responsible.

In my case, I choose not to listen to the wiser voice that was with me, I choose to trust myself.

Well, that did not work out well for me.

For Noah however, he chose to listen to the wiser voice that was with him and he chose to actually build the ark that he was led to build.

This morning I want us to look at

What happened after Noah built the ark?

You see, Noah built an ark on dry land while he was awaiting a flood.

This is the kind of actions that is exemplary for you and me on trusting in what cannot be seen.

God was calling on Noah to do something that had never been done before, and let me tell you…God is calling you to do something that has never been done before also.

What we are going to see this morning is the result of the faith that Noah had at that time, and hopefully that gives you the courage to live the life that God is calling you to live.

You see, Noah was declaring a “judgement is coming”, and for Noah that day has come on gone, however, that day of Noah was a picture of what is to come for you and I.

So this morning I want to start with a question for you to be thinking about while we look at this passage.

Do I trust God?

I just want this question to be floating in your mind as we look at todays passage.

So…what happened after Noah built the ark?

Well, Noah and his family and the animals…

They entered the ark

As we look at Noah and his family entering the ark we will be able to see that there are two parts of this passage.

Let’s take a look at the passage and see what we can learn about God, man, and God’s plan for man this morning.

Join me in looking at...

Genesis 7:1–10 (ESV)

Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.

Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.

For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.”

And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.

Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth.

And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood.

Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah.

And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.

Ok, so I said that this passage is broken into two parts, and so we are going to look at these two parts now.

First we have

The Divine Directive (command)

In this we can see once more the character of Noah.

God said to Noah, You are righteous before me in this generation.

We can see that in Noah and his family’s salvation comes through righteousness.

What is really interesting is that Noah’s family is secondary, to Noah.

Noah’s family participates in salvation through the righteousness of Noah.

You see, this is a picture of the salvation that we participate in through the righteousness of Jesus.

What is amazing is that this whole story simply points us to the final redemption through Jesus.

When we read about Noah’s Ark we are reading a preview of what is to come.

Now, as Noah is commanded by the Lord to board the Ark with the animals.

We are even able to see that God has pre-divided them into their ritual status.

You see, Noah and his family will need to continue to to practice the ritual of sacrifice to atone for their sin…which they are and will be guilty of.

After the Lord commanded them based on the way to collect and gather these animals, and after the Lord told him that the time of judgement is coming in 7 days, Noah had another choice to make.

What we see next is

Noah’s Obedience

I mean vs 5 says it pretty clearly…“Noah did all that the Lord commanded” him.

This is a pretty simple response to a command from the Lord.

However, we also see that there is a week of waiting between the time that the Lord commanded Noah to board the Ark with the animals, and the day when the rain begins.

What is the week for?

What is the week about?

Did Noah misunderstand God as far as when the rain would start and when they should board the ark?

Well, no, we are able to see how God works in this passage.

We see that God commanded Noah, and Noah responded, and then God fulfilled his word.

Now I do wonder what Noah and his family was experiencing in this week leading up to judgement…I mean, Noah is an old man and he has been calling out to his neighbors and even extended family for many many years.

Im sure Noah had a job to do, but do you think he was also trying one last time to get anyone to repent and seek salvation?

I believe that is exactly what Noah was doing.

Think about it…If you knew exactly the day that Jesus was coming back, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to convince everyone to just believe…Begging people and crying out to the Lord for their salvation.

I can just imagine that Noah was not excited about what was about to come…yet even with that burden that he undoubtedly felt…Noah obeyed the Lord.

What about you?

I mean, if the Lord has commanded you to do something hard…are you going to obey, or are you going to just hope it doesn’t actually happen?

Really think about that…What if Noah would have had the opinion of, “Ill just ignore it and it will go away”?

What if Noah thought it was too inconvenient to obey the Lord, especially when it came down to this last week.

I ask that question because isn’t that what you and I do frequently?

We say its to inconvenient to serve our neighbor because I will have to talk to them, or because I wanted to sleep in, or because Saturday is my only day off…What if Noah had the attitude that many of us in this room or joining us online have this morning?

Now, I’m not talking about you, you know that, but maybe your neighbor has that attitude…

I guess really what I am thinking is as I read this story of Noah, I am amazed at his obedience to the Lord and I am frankly confronted with my own lack of obedience at times, and Im pretty sure Im not the only one that would have to admit that.

Something big is happening here though becuase this whole section about Noah’s obedience is bookended by the reality of the waters coming onto the Earth…When we see that, we are able to see that after they entered the ark there was a

Flood of Judgement

Ok, Im going to be honest, this next part is really hard to read and really hard ot think about.

I honestly struggled with this section emotionally.

We are going to try to break it into a couple of sections though as we try to wrap our heads around what is actually happening here.

The first thing that we have to see is