Genesis 9

Good morning everyone. I hope you are all having a blessed time this morning. Right now we will welcome our kids to go back to their amazing teacher as they enjoy an amazing lesson. I also want to welcome those of you that are joining us online and thank you for being a part of our extended spiritual family this morning. We know that there are times when you are unable to join a church in person, but we always encourage physical church attendance as a way to grow spiritually with God and others.

Hey, way back in 1900 there was a survey done and in this survey people said that in order to function normally and be content, they needed 72 things. Now, I don’t know exactly what those 72 things were, but i do know that there was a similar survey in the 1950’s and at that time people said they needed 500 things. Now there was a survey done in 2022 and the result was not found in the number of items…but instead in the amount of money. Presumably so that you can buy whatever is desired. The amount of money of course varied based on where you live. For instance, the lowest “cost of happiness” is in Mississippi with over $87,000 and the highest was Hawaii at a cost of almost $203,000. You see, our “cost of happiness” has increased greatly over the years. However, did you know that God tells us that there are only 2 things that are needed in order to be satisfied?

1 Timothy 6:8 (ESV)

But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

You see, when we look to God our cost of happiness is right sized instead of our own hearts over inflating what is actually needed. Well we are going to take a look this morning at another thing that God has given us to bring us joy…at least, I think it is joy inducing. However, before we get there we need to take a look at what is happening with Noah this morning because there are some interesting things that are happening here. We are going to be in Genesis chapter 9 and so you can go ahead and grab your Bibles and turn there, of course if you do not have a Bible we do have some in the back and we would love for you to take that and consider that your own Bible as a gift from Leaf River Baptist. You can also follow along on the Bible app and see all of the notes that we will go over this morning.

You know as I was looking at this chapter, I was really thinking through how to talk about this passage becuase there really is so much involved here that are really good. Honestly I struggle with that every week, but as I looked at it, sometimes what i will do is just start typing and see how God guides me through the passages. What kind of hit me this week as I was reading this passage is that we need to really look at this new covenant between God and his people. I think this really is important becuase we see how God is working and preparing us for the ultimate covenant through the sacrifice of of Son Jesus. OK, so lets take a look at this

New Covenant with a New World

We are going to go ahead and read our whole passage for this morning, so turn over to

Genesis 9:1–17 (ESV)

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.” Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Whew…there is alot going on here that we need to look at. There is alot to unpack here, but we will try to grab just a couple of bitesize chunks and see how that applies to our lives today and how we can grow as followers of Christ. First of let’s take a look at how

God Provides Life

Ok, this is pretty cool…You see, Noah is a Second Adam. Sooooo…what does that even mean? OK, look at vs 1 and vs 7

Genesis 9:1 (ESV)

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Genesis 9:7 (ESV)

And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”

Now, do you remember from a few weeks ago we saw in

Genesis 1:28 (ESV)

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Ok so, God had told Adam and Eve to “be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth”, and He repeated that mandate twice to Noah and his family. All of Noah’s descendants were important to the plan of God, but we will see the line of Shem is especially important. Because that is the line where Abraham will be born. Abraham is the man God chose to start the Jewish nation. From that nation will come the Redeemer who would fulfill G. 3:15, which is the prophecy saying that there will be one to crush the serpent’s head. Ok, so God has rebooted humanity and given us another chance. Faith in the Lord had saved Noah and his household from destruction, and his sons would now repopulate the whole earth. Now that God has provided a way for life we will see that...

God Preserves Life

Remember that Scripture tells us that all we need in order to be satisfied is food and shelter, thats it. That means, that we don’t need internet, or Netflix, or a nice car, or that raise, or the best clothes, or the perfect lawn…all of these other things are nice for sure…but they are not necessary for us to be satisfied. However, every once and while while God gives us something so amazing that we just have to praise him for his goodness, Amen? I mean, even in the midst of a rough time, or a storm in life…when something good comes from God, which all good things do come from God, but we something good happens…we just need to praise him. So, this morning we are about to see that while Noah is experiencing an increasingly hard time and now he is in charge of repopulating the Earth…Look at

Genesis 9:3 (ESV)

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

Did you see what just happened? God gave Noah meat....Praise the Lord! Listen, I don’t know if you are vegetarian or anything, but right here we see that God gave everything that moves to be food for mankind right here…I mean, when I read that I was so excited and I realized that even in the midst of judgement…even in the midst of the storms that we all experience from time to time…there is always blessing from God if we are willing to see it. Just think of Noah having the first steak...

However, God put one restriction on the eating of animal flesh: the meat must be free of blood (9:4). God told Noah and He later clarified through Moses: the life is in the blood, and the life must be respected. You see, even though meat would be permissible as food, blood would not becuase blood equals life. Now, what does that mean? Well it means that even though God has made meat permissible, it is not to be abused as even animal life has value. In other words, abusing animals and mistreating animals is still an assault on God’s creation, right…I know we may not all know what to think about that and I guess that means I should treat Isabels cat a little nicer, but that is what the text is telling us right here....Thats not all we see though. Because after we see that God provides and preserves life, we can see that

God Protects Life

Listen, even in the command to not eat meat with blood in it God is protecting Noah and his family. From this action we can see that God has placed a value on life, and that value extends to mankind as well. You see, mankind has a higher value to God than the animals which is why if an animal kills a man, that animal will be put to death. Do you realize that we still do this as a culture. It doesn’t matter if it is a domesticated dog, or a wild bear…when an animals attacks a person, that animal is euthanized.

However, God takes this idea of protecting life to another level. We see in v. 5 and 6 that there will be punishment for the taking of human life. We talked about the idea of an animal taking human life, but God also designs that for mankind. You see, anyone who kills another human being will have to answer to God for their actions. Men and women are made in the image of God, and to attack a human being is to attack God. All life is the gift of God, Let me say that again…All life is a gift from God...and to take away life means to take the place of God. Now, in human history there have been times of ritualistic killing of one another. This is largely seen in the sacrifice of babies to the god called Molech. This was a horrendous practice then, and it is a horrendous practice today. Today however, we see millions of people sacrificed to the god of Planned Parenthood. This pagan god may have have changed its name, but the same satanic practice is still going on today as an assault of the image of God.

Right here we see that all life is sacred to God, and we are reminded that man is made in the image of God. So, if someone asks you why killing is wrong…It is not wrong becuase it is against the law…it is not wrong becuase it is against the 10 commandments....Killing is wrong because it is a physical attack on God Image. Well that is all pretty heavy, and there is something more amazing as we read here. You see, God provides life, God preserves life, God protects life and

God Promises Life

I love this part, and Im sure you all do too. You see, this is the part where we realize what the rainbow symbolizes. God established a covenant with Noah. But this covenant was not just with Noah, it was with all of creation and it was for all of time. You see, God said this applies to “all future generations”…that is you and me. So lets look at this covenant that God made with Noah. This is known as the

Noahic Covenant

So first of all as we look at this covenant we see that this is a covenant between God and God. There is no conditions that have been laid down for Noah, or for us to follow in order for this particular covenant to be fulfilled. In this covenant, God promised unconditionally that He would never send another flood to destroy all life on the earth. There were no conditions that men and women had to obey; He simply stated the fact that there would be no more universal floods. From that day on, Noah and his family could enjoy life and not worry every time the rain began to fall.

Within this covenant that God established we have first a covenant with creation. God made this covenant to “every living creature”. I think that is beautiful. You know what else is beautiful???a rainbow. A rainbow which is the covenant sign. In order to remind Noah and all future generations about this covenant God created a sign…a symbol that we can look to in order to remember that God is sovereign and in charge of everything all around us. This sign gives us hope…this sign reminds us of God’s faithfulness. You know, its no wonder why others groups of people will try to take the symbol of the rainbow and connect it to their cause…becuase they are searching for hope. You and I were searching for hope at one time…maybe you are here this morning or joining us online and you would say you are searching for hope now…I don’t know your story, but I know the one who does, and I can tell you that this covenant sign applies to you as well as me. I can tell you that the hope you are searching for is only found in the one who created hope.

1 Peter 1:13 (ESV)

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ as the ultimate sacrifice for you and I. Jesus Chris is the one whose blood was shed for you and I. Jesus Christ is the ultimate provider of life for you and I. This morning we have the privilege of stepping into communion again. However, this morning will be a little different. This morning we have the table set up over by the cross and we are going to ask you to walk up to the table as the music plays. Face the cross and the sacrifice that was made for you, and pick up your elements. take those elements back to your chair and in your time as you speak with God receive those elements as a symbol of his sacrifice and your commitment to him. the words to the songs played will be on the screen and I want to encourage you to read the words as you listen…join in singing when you are ready and worship as you receive communion. Listen, this morning if you are struggling with your commitment with God, then let me encourage you to take these elements as a way of redefining your commitment to the Lord. If you are struggling with understanding your commitment to the Lord then please reach out to me and lets have a conversation. Let’s pray together as we prepare our hearts for communion this morning. Join me as we pray that we will in-fact be satisfied in Christ as we set our hope in Christ more than anything else.

PRAYER

So I am going to remind us about these elements and then I will pray and the music will start, and you can come up in your time. The music will just keep going and I want to ask you to join in singing as you are ready...

1 Corinthians 11:23–26 (NET)

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread, and after he had given thanks he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, every time you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

PRAYER