Noah: Hero or Villain
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In the beginning, God created Tell. It was a dark and stormy night in April. I emerge into this world as a fully grown man. Pray for my mother.
Being born is chaotic. It’s traumatizing. And it has very little to do with what I am talking about tonight. I’m just feeling extra dramatic today.
Chaos has been around from the beginning. It actually plays a vital role in the creation story.
In Genesis 1 we get the story of creation.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
The narrative of order out of chaos is played out through the Bible over and over and over again. God creates order out of chaos, God chooses a man to bless humanity, said man sins, chaos ensues and the cycle starts over again.
Enter Noah. Some of us may know this story, some may not.
Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt. So God said to Noah, “I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!
(Summarize flood story)
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose. And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things. As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”
Noah seems like the hero right? He did everything right. God found him to be the only righteous one on Earth. Now the flood has dried up and all of Noah’s family is safe on dry ground. God has blessed them and promised to never destroy life like that again. But in Chapter 9 everything goes horribly wrong. To make a long story short, Noah gets drunk and his son makes some bad decision's. Noah curses the sons of his son Ham, which caused a ripple effect for generations to come.
Noah is often held up as a hero of faith who saved humanity by obeying the voice of God when it seemed completely absurd. That’s true. But he was also still human. He made mistakes. He messed up a few times.
But here’s my question. Did it change God’s promise? Did God say “Well, you screwed up so now I’m going to destroy everything.” No, because God’s goodness is not based on us or our performance. It doesn’t matter if we are a hero or not, God can still use us!