Jesus opens and closes

When you hear "Noah's Ark",

you probably flash to images of animal pairs and a rainbow,

a big boat and a happy family.

The storybook version is good, but incomplete.

One family.

Led by one man of extraordinary faith.

It's good to teach children about that faith and about God's salvation and promise,

but there is so much more.

We can't stop with that version.

It's the part we like and the part of God that's easy to share,

but what does it really look like to trust and obey like Noah?

What really happens when the flood waters rise?

Genesis 6-9 is scary and heartbreaking.

Noah is obeying when the rest of the world is not.

Noah is listening well enough to hear from the LORD,

and God gives him a complete rescue plan.

Everyone else = condemned.

They have rejected God, and their evil has brought God's wrath.

Noah is bringing a warning as he builds, but unless they repent

there's no hope.

Noah is one of the heroes of Hebrews 11.

We want that kind of faith, but are we willing to live it?

What would it feel like to build a boat as a "fool"?

Would I really preach about rain under a cloudless sky?

Would I build and prepare for 120 years - "wasting my life" as people gawk and giggle?

Why did he do it?

Why did he drag his family through it?

Why did he preach over and over about something so outrageous?

We can see why now,

but faith is the part God requires.

Faith is the action when you can't see.

Faith is required for salvation.

Noah had worked and warned.

People could see proof of his belief.

They even saw animals board the boat,

but he was a fool to them all.

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah.

Then the Lord shut him in.

Genesis 7:11-16

The LORD shut them in.

Then the proof.

The rain.

It poured, and it flooded.

Suddenly there was no question.

It was real.

Can you imagine the terror outside the ark?

I just can't.

What did Noah feel?

Did he want to open the door?

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Most people have a very one-dimensional view of God.

God loves you. Jesus loves you.

VERY TRUE, but sometimes that's as far as we go.

God wants me. He loves me. He saved me.

But there is a reason He saves.

There is a terrible alternative to salvation.

There is a reason we need saving.

Sin has ripped us away from God and everything He created us for.

We reject Him daily.

It's outrageous that He would save at all.

We simply don't deserve it.

We shouldn't be shocked at the flood.

We should be shocked that He saved anyone.

No one deserves salvation.

God's rescue is a gift.

It is grace.

Noah listened and responded in faith.

Others had warning and time,

but faith was the only way to be saved.

Noah believed before the rain.

Waiting for rain cancels the faith.

God does love.

He made a way for Noah and his family to be saved

and for His creation to continue.

But God shut the door.

Noah didn't shut the door.

God shut them in.

The judgment was final.

A wooden boat covered in pitch saved the believers.

"Pitch" in Hebrew means atonement.

Atonement separated the believers from the judgment waters.

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Some people separate the "God of the Old Testament" from the "God of the New".

Don't.

God is the same. He never changes.

God judged, judges, and will judge.

He is holy and therefore just.

God is not choosing sin and rejection - we are.

We can only understand the outrageous love of salvation in Jesus,

with a more complete understanding of God.

If we only know and seek His love, we move into entitlement.

We have the tendency to think Noah should have been saved -

and then we start to question God's love because of the judgment.

No one deserved salvation, but God made a way.

Noah chose to believe.

We have to understand that we don't deserve a rescue,

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) - Ephesians 2:4-5

A real belief, a true faith, should drop us to our knees.

God has provided.

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As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.  For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Matthew 24:37-39

Judgment is coming again.

We don't know when.

No one knows the end of his own life,

and no one knows the day Christ will return.

But God has brought His ultimate, final, and eternal salvation.

It's available for everyone.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. -Ephesians 2:8

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. - John 3:16-18

God is good. God does love us.

Remember the only ones not saved are the ones who don't choose Him.

Noah chose. He believed and obeyed.

Noah had an active faith.

If you believe in the atonement - not the pitch of a boat -

but the blood of Christ-

the blood that cleanses our unrighteousness,

walk in that faith, share it, live it.

Run and tell the Good News of Jesus before it is too late.

Holiness has a standard.

Justice has the recourse of judgment.

And just like the days of Noah, these days are numbered.

Time will run out.

And only Jesus opens and closes the door.

"This is the message from the one who is holy and true, the one who has the key of David. What he opens, no one can close; and what he closes, no one can open:"

“I know all the things you do, and I have opened a door for you that no one can close. You have little strength, yet you obeyed my word and did not deny me."

Revelation 3:7-8

"Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." - John 8:24

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. - 1 John 1:7-9

Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy. -Proverbs 28:13

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. - Hebrews 13:8

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. -2 Timothy 4:1-2

For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. - 1 Thessalonians 5:2

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." - Matthew 7:7-8