Todd Unzicker - Associate Pastor, The Summit Church - Raleigh, NC
Genesis 6:5–8
Here is the question I want you to consider, from multiple angles: Are you all-in in the mission of God with your life? Not just are you committed to the church on the weekend, but with the biggest parts of your life.
I ask myself, "Am I for the mission of God or the mission of Todd?"
Or think of it like this: If you have a breakfast of bacon and eggs, both the pig and the chicken contributed to your breakfast, but in different ways. The chicken made a commitment, but the pig was “All-In”.
Which are you?
Genesis 6:5–8
[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.
People encounter stories of judgment in the Bible like this and they ask, “Was this really necessary?” Verse 5 says that God saw that every intention of the human heart was only evil continually (6:5; again in 8:21).
There is an interesting wordplay in Hebrew: The word used to describe human wickedness in vvs. 12–13 is the same word used to describe what God does to the wicked, “mash-heet,” and it means “destruction.” Sinful humans are destroying God’s good creation; so God is going to destroy the destroyers. He does so out of holiness and love, the same way that if you love someone who is being eaten up with cancer you hate the cancer destroying the body and go to radical measures (like chemotherapy) to eradicate them from the cancer.
Verse 6 says that human wickedness grieved God “to his heart.” The word for “grieved” there is the same word used elsewhere in the Old Testament to describe what an abandoned wife feels (Isaiah 54:6)....a soul-wrenching, despairing grief.
So a holy God of perfect love cleansed the earth of sin. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord—undeserved kindness—and he preserved Noah and his family as a representative of the human race through whom he would repopulate the earth.
Now you say, “Well, was this solution effective?” The short answer is, “no.”
Noah screws up his own family within one chapter of being off of the ark. By the end of chapter 9, his family looks like an episode of the Jerry Springer show. In 8:21, the author repeats that the intentions of the human heart were still only evil continually, which tells you that a greater kind of salvation would be necessary, one that would go to the core of the human heart, which is the real meaning of this story that we’ll get to in a minute.
But let me first draw out 4 points about Noah I want you to see:
1. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
What was special about Noah? Nothing. He simply heard the voice of God and he responded. Vs. 9 tells you he was a righteous man. Why was he righteous? Because he responded to God’s offer of salvation. Period. That was it.
2. Noah demonstrated God’s salvation to others.
Noah was chosen not only for salvation; but to build an ark which would be a vehicle of salvation to whoever would listen. That would end up being only his family, but the point is that God’s grace toward him was not intended for him only. He was to be a channel of grace toward others.
3. Noah radically changed his life because of God’s grace.
After this announcement, he could not go on with “life as normal.” Imagine the difference from this point on in how Noah saw the world: Every person he saw was headed for destruction. The house he had built wouldn’
