WEBVTT 00:00.071 --> 00:00.592 [SPEAKER_01]: How are we? 00:01.793 --> 00:03.915 [SPEAKER_01]: Doing good, welcome everyone joining us online. 00:04.315 --> 00:06.497 [SPEAKER_01]: It's great to see you as well. 00:06.617 --> 00:07.898 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for being with us. 00:08.319 --> 00:12.963 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're in our parents room with little ones, we appreciate that you're here this morning. 00:13.323 --> 00:20.870 [SPEAKER_01]: How many know that if you've got children who are between the ages of zero months and 18 months, most of the time it's easier to stay at home? 00:21.451 --> 00:22.832 [SPEAKER_01]: And you're just like, you know what? 00:23.272 --> 00:38.851 [SPEAKER_01]: We, let's just, let's just, let's just stay warm and inside, but bless you if you've made it out, we have a parent's room, especially for that and so we're so glad that you're here with us as well. 00:39.792 --> 00:50.763 [SPEAKER_01]: Um, many of us who come to discover church Mount Evelyn would live either out in the Yarra Valley, maybe back towards Ringwood, maybe you live up in the hills somewhere. 00:51.303 --> 00:59.872 [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that I learned when we moved into the hills, um, for our family, was that fire bunkers were real things. 01:01.134 --> 01:06.316 [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't realize that till the first person I went to, it's in friends who lived up in our mountain on. 01:06.336 --> 01:14.380 [SPEAKER_01]: We went to their house and I was like, what's that concrete box with a big metal cover over the front of it and a little vent coming out the top? 01:14.640 --> 01:16.141 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it was their fire bunker. 01:16.461 --> 01:27.406 [SPEAKER_01]: Now at first, I'll be honest with you, when I walked in and I saw that, I thought to myself, oh my gosh, like imagine having to like use that. 01:30.352 --> 01:35.237 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, you're huddled down in there just eating, you know, baked beans over and over. 01:36.098 --> 01:43.587 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, and, but at the same time, I also had a second thought, which was, man, I'm so glad they've got that. 01:44.668 --> 01:48.712 [SPEAKER_01]: It was both, because how many know that if the fire is coming, 01:49.798 --> 01:55.041 [SPEAKER_01]: It's too late, you can't build a fire bunker when the wind fires on their way, right? 01:55.362 --> 02:03.747 [SPEAKER_01]: The best time to build it is when the sunny and the sun's out and the skies are blue and it's a nice, cool day, maybe like today. 02:04.027 --> 02:09.550 [SPEAKER_01]: That's a good day to build something that you need later on, not in the moment. 02:10.611 --> 02:18.236 [SPEAKER_01]: You don't build when the fire starts because when disaster comes, preparation suddenly looks like wisdom, oh, that's why. 02:19.664 --> 02:36.696 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, in this series, the Old Testament, more than a bedtime story, we're going to be unpacking a whole host of Old Testament stories that perhaps you've consigned in your mind too, or that's what they learn in the kids' rooms. 02:38.004 --> 02:51.431 [SPEAKER_01]: because most of the time I've seen those images or I've heard those stories and they're part of kids coloring in, you know, they're part of those kinds of things and they're connected to kind of like cool little craft that little kids can do. 02:52.411 --> 02:57.854 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, how many know that the Old Testament is filled with stories, they actually weren't written for kids. 02:59.067 --> 03:24.263 [SPEAKER_01]: We've sort of dialed them down to make them age appropriate, but at the very same time, what they are full of rich narrative, rich stories, incredibly deep theology that we can sometimes go, oh yeah, that's right, Noah, and two by two by two by two by two and we'll make a song. 03:24.983 --> 03:46.315 [SPEAKER_01]: Now that is incredible and yes through this series we will be teaching these stories in our kids rooms and we want to be engaging with them as adults as well and so our hope is as we go through this you're going to go oh oh oh okay there is something here for me that I can 03:53.675 --> 03:56.319 [SPEAKER_01]: is the same God as the one in the new. 03:57.461 --> 04:02.049 [SPEAKER_01]: The title of the message today is good cop bad cop because I think that's the meme that we've absorbed. 04:03.151 --> 04:07.257 [SPEAKER_01]: We tend to think God of the Old Testament scary. 04:08.456 --> 04:14.580 [SPEAKER_01]: fierce, judgmental, angry, but then thank goodness. 04:17.342 --> 04:29.750 [SPEAKER_01]: Because the new Testament arrives and Jesus shows us that God's nice and kind and merciful and compassionate, and we don't have to worry about that scary guy in the Old Testament anymore. 04:33.732 --> 04:37.294 [SPEAKER_01]: This question that we're going to explore today because we are going to be 04:38.521 --> 04:43.685 [SPEAKER_01]: at Noah's Ark, is is this the same God in the Old Testament as the new? 04:44.025 --> 04:45.506 [SPEAKER_01]: I think we're going to find yes. 04:46.847 --> 04:53.471 [SPEAKER_01]: But there is this image that we have sort of absorbed, we've got a slide for it here. 04:53.811 --> 05:05.359 [SPEAKER_01]: You can jump to it now, which says, we've got angry, violent, judging, harsh, rules God in the Old Testament, but grace, love, forgiveness, kindness, and acceptance God in the New Testament, how good is that? 05:09.876 --> 05:11.820 [SPEAKER_01]: But listen to this from Luke chapter 24. 05:11.860 --> 05:16.230 [SPEAKER_01]: This is Jesus talking to a couple on the road to a mayor in Luke 24. 05:17.844 --> 05:38.847 [SPEAKER_01]: He said to them, how foolish you are, how slow to believe all the prophets have spoken, did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and enter into His glory, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself 05:41.087 --> 05:50.040 [SPEAKER_01]: So the Old Testament is put together and is a complete narrative arc that draws a line towards Jesus. 05:50.922 --> 05:53.405 [SPEAKER_01]: It's part of one and the same story. 05:53.445 --> 05:54.246 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's have a look at it. 05:55.168 --> 05:55.889 [SPEAKER_01]: We start at 05:56.389 --> 06:03.696 [SPEAKER_01]: that moves to fall, Abraham, Israel, kings, prophets, Jesus, Holy Spirit church, missions, and the age to come. 06:04.036 --> 06:13.404 [SPEAKER_01]: It's one long, long line that you can't just say, well, we're dropping here, and this is when God all of a sudden, he's been to counseling and he's better now. 06:15.326 --> 06:15.546 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah? 06:15.906 --> 06:16.647 [SPEAKER_01]: He's better now. 06:17.047 --> 06:17.668 [SPEAKER_01]: It's okay. 06:19.286 --> 06:20.727 [SPEAKER_01]: He changed his ways. 06:20.847 --> 06:29.491 [SPEAKER_01]: There was 300 years of silence before Jesus and God had a really good hard think about himself and decided to do things differently. 06:29.551 --> 06:33.492 [SPEAKER_01]: No, Jesus used the Old Testament to explain about himself. 06:34.873 --> 06:37.114 [SPEAKER_01]: What scriptures did Paul have? 06:39.013 --> 06:40.615 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, he had the Old Testament. 06:41.275 --> 06:42.477 [SPEAKER_01]: What scriptures did Peter have? 06:42.977 --> 06:44.298 [SPEAKER_01]: He had the Old Testament too. 06:44.539 --> 06:46.120 [SPEAKER_01]: Which scriptures did Jesus have? 06:46.901 --> 06:48.723 [SPEAKER_01]: Jesus had the Old Testament also. 06:49.183 --> 06:55.750 [SPEAKER_01]: And in all of those people, in all of those readings, they saw a God who never changed. 06:56.771 --> 07:01.256 [SPEAKER_01]: Who was the same yesterday, today and forever. 07:02.388 --> 07:14.090 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, so many of these stories that we'll look at have been so widely known that they've become known, not just in churches, not just in Sunday schools, but in kind of in common worldwide culture. 07:14.430 --> 07:26.633 [SPEAKER_01]: So, David and Goliath, when you say that out, when you say that just at your workplace, or you say that at your family function, people automatically understand, if you say it's a David and Goliath battle. 07:27.433 --> 07:28.513 [SPEAKER_01]: What do people understand? 07:29.418 --> 07:33.739 [SPEAKER_01]: They see kind of big versus small, powerful versus underdog, right? 07:33.799 --> 07:35.880 [SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of come into culture. 07:36.520 --> 07:38.560 [SPEAKER_01]: And so many of these stories have. 07:38.960 --> 07:45.342 [SPEAKER_01]: Noah's arc is the same, but we're going to demystify it down a little bit deeper today and go into the story. 07:45.442 --> 07:47.722 [SPEAKER_01]: So a little bit of scripture this morning. 07:47.982 --> 07:52.823 [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to start in Genesis chapter six, read verse 11 to verse 22. 07:53.184 --> 07:53.724 [SPEAKER_01]: Here we go. 07:53.764 --> 07:56.744 [SPEAKER_01]: Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, 07:59.825 --> 08:06.570 [SPEAKER_01]: God saw how corrupt the earth had become for the people on the earth had corrupted their ways. 08:07.971 --> 08:13.335 [SPEAKER_01]: God said to Noah, I'm going to put an end to all people for the earth is filled with violence because of them. 08:13.996 --> 08:16.097 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 08:16.598 --> 08:22.442 [SPEAKER_01]: So make yourself an arc of Cyprus would make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 08:22.462 --> 08:23.523 [SPEAKER_01]: This is how you to build it. 08:24.587 --> 08:31.829 [SPEAKER_01]: 300 qubits long, 50 qubits wide, 30 qubits high, make a roof for it, leaving below the roof and opening one qubit high all around. 08:32.630 --> 08:42.393 [SPEAKER_01]: Put a door in the side of the yard, make lower middle and upper deck, so I'm gonna bring floodwaters to the earth to destroy all life under heavens and every creature that has breath life in it. 08:43.472 --> 08:47.213 [SPEAKER_01]: Everything on earth will perish, but I will establish my covenant with you. 08:47.233 --> 08:52.375 [SPEAKER_01]: And you will enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. 08:52.835 --> 09:03.418 [SPEAKER_01]: You were to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, keep them alive with you, two of every kind of bird, every kind of animal, every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you and be kept alive. 09:04.018 --> 09:07.899 [SPEAKER_01]: You were to take every kind of food that's to be eaten, store it away as food for you and them. 09:13.441 --> 09:13.701 [SPEAKER_01]: him. 09:14.442 --> 09:20.807 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, a lot to unpack, and I know that all of a sudden there is a, oh my gosh, this seems intense. 09:21.147 --> 09:23.949 [SPEAKER_01]: We're only in Genesis chapter six, what's going on. 09:24.430 --> 09:29.794 [SPEAKER_01]: The first thing I want us to point our attention to is that God sees. 09:30.595 --> 09:31.215 [SPEAKER_01]: He sees. 09:33.537 --> 09:36.159 [SPEAKER_01]: It's the first thing that we see here in this passage, 09:41.452 --> 09:45.715 [SPEAKER_01]: how corrupt the earth had become, and all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 09:46.215 --> 09:51.499 [SPEAKER_01]: So before we talk about the flood, and before we talk about the arkals, talk about what God sees. 09:52.739 --> 09:55.961 [SPEAKER_01]: Genesis says the earth was corrupt in God's sight. 09:56.001 --> 10:03.066 [SPEAKER_01]: We tend to kind of stumble over that and get to the part where God says, I'm going to destroy everything that has breath in it. 10:03.106 --> 10:06.668 [SPEAKER_01]: But let's come back to the fact that God sees. 10:07.969 --> 10:14.774 [SPEAKER_01]: Genesis asks a different kind of question, and the question is this, what kind of God would be a God who sees violence and does nothing? 10:19.877 --> 10:32.085 [SPEAKER_01]: What kind of God would God be if he saw corruption, violence, pain, abuse, death, and just saw it and left it? 10:35.111 --> 10:49.662 [SPEAKER_01]: The language here that gets beaten like a drum into these first few verses of chapter six is corruption, corruption, corruption, violence, violence, violence. 10:50.262 --> 10:57.168 [SPEAKER_01]: Not mistakes, not someone had a bad day, but, 10:58.934 --> 11:01.496 [SPEAKER_01]: Violence, oppression, and abuse. 11:01.536 --> 11:04.338 [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't one bad family or one bad king. 11:04.418 --> 11:08.762 [SPEAKER_01]: This is human civilization becoming bent in on itself. 11:15.267 --> 11:19.250 [SPEAKER_01]: Imagine sitting with someone who suffered the most terrible violence imaginable. 11:20.251 --> 11:22.612 [SPEAKER_01]: The most terrible abuse imaginable and saying to them, 11:31.052 --> 11:37.557 [SPEAKER_01]: The fact that God sees is incredibly liberating for victims and incredibly scary for perpetrators. 11:39.139 --> 11:42.922 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not comforting if God stands idly by. 11:43.890 --> 11:46.131 [SPEAKER_01]: while violence and corruption takes place. 11:46.751 --> 11:47.632 [SPEAKER_01]: He's not indifferent. 11:48.572 --> 11:50.633 [SPEAKER_01]: Justices not the opposite of love. 11:51.273 --> 11:54.174 [SPEAKER_01]: Justices what love looks like when an encounter's evil. 11:55.195 --> 12:01.318 [SPEAKER_01]: And so here's something extraordinary because Genesis chapter six takes us back to Genesis chapter one. 12:01.578 --> 12:02.798 [SPEAKER_01]: What does the refrain? 12:02.858 --> 12:04.639 [SPEAKER_01]: What's the refrain of Genesis chapter one? 12:04.659 --> 12:11.142 [SPEAKER_01]: If you remember the first six days of creation, and God saw what He created and it was, 12:12.294 --> 12:14.094 [SPEAKER_01]: God saw what he created and it was. 12:14.795 --> 12:16.555 [SPEAKER_01]: God saw what it created and it was. 12:17.135 --> 12:20.196 [SPEAKER_01]: And then on the sixth day, final day, God saw a stood back. 12:20.856 --> 12:24.777 [SPEAKER_01]: And so everything that he created and it was very good. 12:25.857 --> 12:26.537 [SPEAKER_01]: It was very good. 12:27.778 --> 12:33.099 [SPEAKER_01]: Now Genesis chapter six, intentionally inverts that idea. 12:34.164 --> 12:37.285 [SPEAKER_01]: God saw what earth had become and it was corrupt. 12:37.826 --> 12:42.448 [SPEAKER_01]: He saw that the earth had bent in and itself and it was corrupted. 12:42.708 --> 12:45.869 [SPEAKER_01]: He saw that the earth had become full of violence. 12:46.190 --> 12:50.672 [SPEAKER_01]: So it is a direct flip of Genesis chapter one. 12:51.792 --> 12:53.273 [SPEAKER_01]: Do you hear this echo here? 12:53.313 --> 13:01.897 [SPEAKER_01]: The author wants us to hear this echo because the world that God had delighted in becomes the world that breaks his heart. 13:03.507 --> 13:06.932 [SPEAKER_01]: The flood isn't random, anger, it is the earth running backwards. 13:07.272 --> 13:10.196 [SPEAKER_01]: What happened at the beginning of creation? 13:10.236 --> 13:14.361 [SPEAKER_01]: There was nothing, the hospital was hovering over the waters, and then what? 13:15.312 --> 13:26.037 [SPEAKER_01]: is God creates, he speaks, the stars are in place, dry land forms, birds, animals, fill the earth and the earth is populated with life. 13:26.997 --> 13:40.604 [SPEAKER_01]: Genesis 6 tells a story of reversal, the earth disappearing, the world depreciating, moving away from life, everything being kind of sucked back into chaos. 13:43.186 --> 13:50.770 [SPEAKER_01]: He's allowing creation to return to the disorder that humans in and violence had chosen. 13:52.710 --> 13:56.012 [SPEAKER_01]: But before the flood comes, something else, incredible happens. 13:57.733 --> 13:58.973 [SPEAKER_01]: Something incredible happens. 14:00.294 --> 14:01.815 [SPEAKER_01]: God's heart breaks. 14:04.276 --> 14:08.258 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's just quickly read Genesis, chapter 6, verse 5 and 6. 14:13.842 --> 14:28.186 [SPEAKER_01]: The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intention of his thoughts of his heart were only evil continually, and the Lord regretted that he'd made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. 14:30.227 --> 14:38.909 [SPEAKER_01]: Those words are astonishing to me because from Genesis chapter six we're introduced to a God whose heart breaks. 14:41.567 --> 14:44.329 [SPEAKER_01]: The creator of the earth has a broken heart. 14:48.893 --> 15:08.228 [SPEAKER_01]: It sounds maybe a little bit more kind of malleable to 21st century is, but when you think about the creator of every living thing, everything that lives moves and has its being, everything that's seen, everything below the earth, on the earth and above the earth, guides created at all. 15:09.836 --> 15:25.322 [SPEAKER_01]: planned and purposeed it and yet in this moment, his heart breaks, like a builder standing in a house, he lovingly created only to discover termites of hollered it out and made a brittle from the inside. 15:28.784 --> 15:32.245 [SPEAKER_01]: God's not emotionally detached from you or from us. 15:33.305 --> 15:36.787 [SPEAKER_01]: He's not sitting in heaven balancing out moral spreadsheets. 15:38.956 --> 15:49.964 [SPEAKER_01]: The creator has a broken heart, not because creation has malfunctioned, but because the people he loved made in his own image, chose violence over love, domination over stewardship, and death over life. 15:53.227 --> 15:57.290 [SPEAKER_01]: I think sometimes we've imagined that God is less compassionate than we are. 16:00.032 --> 16:04.355 [SPEAKER_01]: You know that God doesn't care as much as I do, or as you do, 16:06.162 --> 16:13.551 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that somehow our compassion and our love for people somehow exceeds his. 16:17.576 --> 16:24.665 [SPEAKER_01]: But every year, we cry over a broken world is only an echo of the grief God has carried from the beginning. 16:27.343 --> 16:37.269 [SPEAKER_01]: And if you wonder whether that's what really God is like, if that's what God is like, let's look at Jesus, who stood at the gates of Jerusalem, stood overlooking Jerusalem and wept. 16:38.209 --> 16:41.631 [SPEAKER_01]: He stood at Lazarus's grave and wept. 16:42.912 --> 16:44.973 [SPEAKER_01]: The same God who grieves before the flood. 16:47.175 --> 16:50.897 [SPEAKER_01]: Is this the angry God of the Old Testament or is this a God whose heart is breaking? 16:53.482 --> 17:00.784 [SPEAKER_01]: And perhaps before you hear anything else today, church, you need to know this, that God's heart breaks for this world. 17:03.684 --> 17:04.745 [SPEAKER_01]: It breaks for victims. 17:05.085 --> 17:07.225 [SPEAKER_01]: It breaks for perpetrators, trapped in sin. 17:07.545 --> 17:09.126 [SPEAKER_01]: It breaks for fractured families. 17:09.446 --> 17:10.746 [SPEAKER_01]: It breaks for wounded children. 17:10.766 --> 17:12.127 [SPEAKER_01]: It breaks for lonely people. 17:12.387 --> 17:13.787 [SPEAKER_01]: It breaks for weary souls. 17:16.503 --> 17:23.293 [SPEAKER_01]: And so from the opening pages of Scripture, God does not stand at a distance from His creation, He enters into its sorrow. 17:24.114 --> 17:29.702 [SPEAKER_01]: And ultimately leads us towards Jesus who will bear that grief Himself. 17:30.864 --> 17:31.185 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. 17:31.665 --> 17:34.626 [SPEAKER_01]: continuing on Genesis 7 13 to 17. 17:34.666 --> 17:42.788 [SPEAKER_01]: That very day, Noir and his sons, Sham, Ham, and Japhith, together with his wife and wives of his three sons, entered the Ark. 17:43.269 --> 17:53.552 [SPEAKER_01]: They had with them every while, down on them, according to its kind, or 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. 17:53.952 --> 17:57.573 [SPEAKER_01]: Pairs of all creatures that are breath of life in them, came to Noir and entered the Ark, 17:57.913 --> 18:05.600 [SPEAKER_01]: Animals going in were male and female for every living thing, God commanded Noah, then the Lord shut him in. 18:06.080 --> 18:11.204 [SPEAKER_01]: For 40 days, the flood kept coming on the earth as the water increased, they lifted the archive above the earth. 18:11.865 --> 18:19.031 [SPEAKER_01]: God's judgment is real, but His mercy arrives first, look at this, God shuts Noah in. 18:21.495 --> 18:28.878 [SPEAKER_01]: I got to be honest with you, I glanced over this detail about the first five times I read it, as I went over, but I thought that's strange. 18:28.978 --> 18:30.659 [SPEAKER_01]: Why does God shut no we're in? 18:33.480 --> 18:35.301 [SPEAKER_01]: He could have just shut the door himself. 18:36.962 --> 18:39.363 [SPEAKER_01]: Like he has a key, he built the art, right? 18:39.383 --> 18:40.644 [SPEAKER_01]: He knows how things work. 18:41.324 --> 18:48.667 [SPEAKER_01]: He could have just gone in, closed the door, and then he's in, but God shuts noa in. 18:51.995 --> 18:56.679 [SPEAKER_01]: No, it doesn't climb a board, pull the door closed and say, I'm safe now, God closes the door. 19:01.823 --> 19:06.447 [SPEAKER_01]: God does not stand on the shore, yelling instructions to drowning people. 19:08.629 --> 19:16.195 [SPEAKER_01]: He jumps into the water, grabs them out, and in his case, he shuts Noah in. 19:17.236 --> 19:20.577 [SPEAKER_01]: Every bit of Noah's obedience sits inside of God's grace. 19:20.597 --> 19:25.039 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, he had to build an arc for a flood that he knew nothing of or knew nothing about. 19:26.039 --> 19:33.161 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, he trusts God when God said, yes, he walks into the arc, but every step is a response to what God has already initiated. 19:33.461 --> 19:38.043 [SPEAKER_01]: Mercy always makes the first move, and God always makes the first move. 19:39.310 --> 19:40.411 [SPEAKER_01]: Think about your own life. 19:41.131 --> 19:43.173 [SPEAKER_01]: All of your searching for God. 19:43.233 --> 19:47.356 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't love that phrase I found God because really God found you. 19:47.376 --> 19:59.706 [SPEAKER_01]: Here, you tried your very best with the mind that you have to comprehend and somehow faith rose up in your heart to believe on a Savior and that was God's doing. 20:00.727 --> 20:01.988 [SPEAKER_01]: The Lord shut you in. 20:03.393 --> 20:04.254 [SPEAKER_01]: He brought you. 20:04.314 --> 20:09.439 [SPEAKER_01]: He showed you as grace and as mercy and as kindness and as love and he shut you in. 20:11.522 --> 20:15.746 [SPEAKER_01]: From the beginning Adam and Eve sinned but before they leave the garden God closed them. 20:16.427 --> 20:22.033 [SPEAKER_01]: Israel faces judgment and Egypt but before they leave Egypt God gives them the land. 20:23.920 --> 20:27.382 [SPEAKER_01]: In the wilderness, as full of snakes, God raises up a bronze serpent. 20:27.622 --> 20:34.526 [SPEAKER_01]: Humanities lost, but before we ever thought to seek him, God sent his son, before judgment, my friends, there is always an ark. 20:35.886 --> 20:37.727 [SPEAKER_01]: There is always a rescue. 20:38.528 --> 20:40.749 [SPEAKER_01]: There is God always reaching out. 20:42.570 --> 20:44.731 [SPEAKER_01]: Is this the harsh God of the Old Testament? 20:45.131 --> 20:46.932 [SPEAKER_01]: No, He's already building an ark. 20:48.613 --> 20:51.495 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I wonder what kind of ark God is calling you to build? 20:53.050 --> 20:55.052 [SPEAKER_01]: Parents, you know, your home can become an arc. 20:56.913 --> 21:04.419 [SPEAKER_01]: A place where grace is practiced before your kids enter out into the world. 21:05.599 --> 21:08.221 [SPEAKER_01]: Small group leaders, your lounge room can become an arc. 21:09.843 --> 21:14.386 [SPEAKER_01]: With a Lord, sometimes on a Thursday night will shut you in. 21:16.388 --> 21:20.331 [SPEAKER_01]: And you will learn grace and mercy and kindness. 21:21.775 --> 21:24.418 [SPEAKER_01]: Business owners, you know, your workplace can become an arc. 21:25.399 --> 21:31.525 [SPEAKER_01]: That thing you're building to rescue people who are just trying to escape something nasty. 21:33.327 --> 21:37.090 [SPEAKER_01]: Places where broken people find shelter while the storms of life rage. 21:40.254 --> 21:43.977 [SPEAKER_01]: He's always looking for ways to rescue before he ever delights in judgment. 21:43.997 --> 21:44.658 [SPEAKER_01]: That's our God. 21:47.735 --> 21:57.542 [SPEAKER_01]: And every Ark in Scripture, every sacrifice, every covering, every rescue boat is ultimately pointing to one greater refuge Jesus Christ, who is our true Ark. 21:59.007 --> 22:01.388 [SPEAKER_01]: final passage and final thought. 22:02.329 --> 22:04.570 [SPEAKER_01]: Genesis chapter nine, I love this. 22:06.051 --> 22:13.256 [SPEAKER_01]: God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I'm making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come. 22:13.676 --> 22:15.437 [SPEAKER_01]: I've set my rainbow in the clouds. 22:15.877 --> 22:18.799 [SPEAKER_01]: It will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 22:19.199 --> 22:28.084 [SPEAKER_01]: Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and rainbow appears in the clouds, I'll remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. 22:28.645 --> 22:31.947 [SPEAKER_01]: Never again, will the waters become afloat to destroy all life. 22:32.047 --> 22:39.231 [SPEAKER_01]: Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures. 22:40.112 --> 22:45.535 [SPEAKER_01]: So God said to know, this is the sign of the covenant I've established between me and all life on the earth. 22:46.723 --> 22:48.364 [SPEAKER_01]: The sons of Noah came out of the aqua. 22:48.384 --> 22:50.886 [SPEAKER_01]: Shem, Hamm, and J5th, Hamm was the father of Cainan. 22:51.267 --> 22:56.611 [SPEAKER_01]: These were the three sons of Noah and from them came the people who scattered over the whole earth. 22:56.691 --> 23:00.013 [SPEAKER_01]: Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. 23:00.654 --> 23:05.317 [SPEAKER_01]: When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 23:05.978 --> 23:10.281 [SPEAKER_01]: Hamm, the father of Cainan, saw his father naked and his two brothers outside. 23:10.461 --> 23:12.723 [SPEAKER_01]: That part, I think they leave out of the kids' church. 23:17.571 --> 23:27.305 [SPEAKER_01]: they leave that bit up, which, you know, I'll keep going. 23:27.325 --> 23:33.133 [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I'm more to say but wisdom says don't say, I'm 23:35.104 --> 23:37.426 [SPEAKER_01]: God does something extraordinary. 23:38.006 --> 23:40.348 [SPEAKER_01]: He gives Noah a bow. 23:40.468 --> 23:46.912 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, we have in our English Bibles this word rainbow, because that's kind of the way that we relate to it. 23:46.992 --> 23:49.774 [SPEAKER_01]: But the Hebrew word doesn't say rainbow. 23:49.814 --> 23:50.955 [SPEAKER_01]: It literally says bow. 23:52.676 --> 24:03.209 [SPEAKER_01]: God gave Noah a bow, and so we see this bow that's been placed up in the clouds and it is an image of an archer's bow. 24:03.910 --> 24:05.052 [SPEAKER_01]: I.e. 24:05.692 --> 24:07.194 [SPEAKER_01]: an instrument of war. 24:08.075 --> 24:13.641 [SPEAKER_01]: And God places this bow like a warrior coming home after a long battle. 24:13.981 --> 24:16.544 [SPEAKER_01]: He places the bow at rest. 24:16.884 --> 24:21.248 [SPEAKER_01]: He places it in place as though to say my bow is down. 24:21.569 --> 24:22.990 [SPEAKER_01]: The war is over. 24:23.291 --> 24:25.092 [SPEAKER_01]: My judgment is suspended. 24:26.193 --> 24:30.418 [SPEAKER_01]: So whenever you see the bow in the sky, remember God's mercy. 24:31.540 --> 24:35.083 [SPEAKER_01]: He's placed this bow there to say it's at rest. 24:35.543 --> 24:42.208 [SPEAKER_01]: Mercy is our judgment has now been deferred, and my bow is in its resting place. 24:44.790 --> 24:46.412 [SPEAKER_01]: Mercy has the final word. 24:46.452 --> 24:50.154 [SPEAKER_01]: The battle is over and the weapon is at rest. 24:50.815 --> 24:59.562 [SPEAKER_01]: But ultimately this bow in Genesis 6.4, it doesn't it, because another day, another judgment will fall, not on the world but on Christ. 25:00.913 --> 25:10.796 [SPEAKER_01]: Just as it was not ignored, it was exhausted in Him and it landed on Jesus so that all of us who are in Christ might never face condemnation. 25:10.816 --> 25:26.582 [SPEAKER_01]: This is how God could remain both perfectly just and perfectly merciful and then Noah does something and I want to leave us this is our second last image, the final image, is Noah does something strange. 25:30.603 --> 25:41.449 [SPEAKER_01]: If it's you, I'm probably building a fire bunker or a moat around my little house, just in case another flood comes. 25:42.449 --> 25:51.014 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm building many, many things I might be planting wheat so that I can harvest in harvest time, but no it does something crazy. 25:52.395 --> 25:53.255 [SPEAKER_01]: He plants a vineyard. 25:55.216 --> 25:56.037 [SPEAKER_01]: Why is that weird? 25:57.580 --> 26:02.762 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's weird because anyone who knows vines know that they don't produce straight away. 26:05.903 --> 26:08.664 [SPEAKER_01]: So he plants a vineyard in faith. 26:10.505 --> 26:12.546 [SPEAKER_01]: It's an act of hope in the future. 26:13.726 --> 26:22.910 [SPEAKER_01]: That says, I'm gonna be around, and my kids are gonna be around, and my kids are gonna be around, hey, what are you building for the future generations? 26:24.502 --> 26:28.125 [SPEAKER_01]: Noah doesn't just think about tomorrow, about survival. 26:31.507 --> 26:33.388 [SPEAKER_01]: This is an act of outrageous faith. 26:34.369 --> 26:35.870 [SPEAKER_01]: Grapes don't produce next week. 26:35.910 --> 26:37.511 [SPEAKER_01]: They don't even produce next year. 26:37.751 --> 26:39.753 [SPEAKER_01]: They take years before their established. 26:39.973 --> 26:45.637 [SPEAKER_01]: And so Noah plants something that he may never fully enjoy. 26:49.133 --> 26:53.838 [SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't spend the rest of his life preparing for the next disaster, instead he plants hope. 26:54.118 --> 26:56.821 [SPEAKER_01]: I think some of us have become very, very good at surviving. 26:57.982 --> 26:59.664 [SPEAKER_01]: Very good at protecting ourselves. 27:00.345 --> 27:02.167 [SPEAKER_01]: Very good at expecting the worst. 27:03.708 --> 27:11.617 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, every day feels like for you like a mine field, or I don't know which way I'm gonna step what's gonna blow up today, what catastrophe's gonna happen. 27:13.112 --> 27:28.595 [SPEAKER_01]: But followers of Jesus are called to plant vineyards, to start ministries we will never finish, to disciple children who will one day disciple others, to plant churches, maybe that we will never pastor, to generously give towards things that we may never personally enjoy. 27:30.555 --> 27:31.735 [SPEAKER_01]: No plant at a vineyard. 27:34.416 --> 27:39.556 [SPEAKER_01]: Faith has always planted trees whose shade someone else will sit under. 27:44.533 --> 27:51.576 [SPEAKER_01]: But then, of course, the ache still remains. 27:54.838 --> 27:56.219 [SPEAKER_01]: The story takes another turn. 27:56.479 --> 28:02.962 [SPEAKER_01]: And if it was Hollywood, and if we'd just seen the latest blockbuster, the story ends with Noah's Vineyard. 28:03.802 --> 28:04.182 [SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't it? 28:04.843 --> 28:05.763 [SPEAKER_00]: He plans a vineyard. 28:06.183 --> 28:07.564 [SPEAKER_00]: Seeds of hope for the future. 28:08.004 --> 28:09.445 [SPEAKER_00]: One day, good things will come. 28:15.503 --> 28:22.889 [SPEAKER_01]: The Bible gives us these words, and they're very unceremonious that says, Noah got drunk. 28:27.053 --> 28:29.215 [SPEAKER_01]: Adelise naked in his tent. 28:29.395 --> 28:30.696 [SPEAKER_01]: What an image to finish on. 28:32.357 --> 28:33.679 [SPEAKER_01]: That takes a turn, doesn't it? 28:33.719 --> 28:36.841 [SPEAKER_01]: Imagine that, imagine the movie ends there, and then the credits roll. 28:37.202 --> 28:38.543 [SPEAKER_01]: And you're thinking, what? 28:39.604 --> 28:41.886 [SPEAKER_01]: That's a weird one, Nolan, why'd you do that? 28:44.493 --> 28:46.755 [SPEAKER_01]: The Bible is relentlessly honest. 28:47.796 --> 28:50.818 [SPEAKER_01]: It refuses to airbrush its heroes. 28:52.059 --> 28:53.280 [SPEAKER_01]: Noah's a man of faith. 28:54.321 --> 28:59.785 [SPEAKER_01]: Even when in our new Testament in Hebrews, he gets held up as a man of great faith. 29:00.025 --> 29:01.286 [SPEAKER_01]: He believed God. 29:02.527 --> 29:07.071 [SPEAKER_01]: And yet the Bible refuses to give him the perfect outro. 29:08.237 --> 29:11.204 [SPEAKER_01]: The last image we have is this kind of image. 29:12.107 --> 29:15.595 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, depending on how visual you are, think you're already there. 29:18.443 --> 29:22.084 [SPEAKER_01]: But God refuses to let us build our hope on human beings. 29:22.344 --> 29:24.584 [SPEAKER_01]: This is the story for the rest of Genesis. 29:24.964 --> 29:33.326 [SPEAKER_01]: Abraham failed, the Adam failed, Kane failed, Noah failed, Abraham failed, Moses failed, David will fail, Solomon will fail. 29:33.526 --> 29:38.847 [SPEAKER_01]: The Old Testament keeps introducing us to heroes and then showing us where they're cracked and broken. 29:39.227 --> 29:39.787 [SPEAKER_01]: Why? 29:40.907 --> 29:45.168 [SPEAKER_01]: It refuses to allow us to place our hope and trust in people. 29:46.414 --> 30:01.877 [SPEAKER_01]: until the one, until the one, the greater Noah who built an ark for the world, the greater Noah who will take the flood upon himself. 30:03.266 --> 30:10.655 [SPEAKER_01]: the greater Noah, who will be completely just and completely merciful all at the same time. 30:10.875 --> 30:14.299 [SPEAKER_01]: His name is Jesus, friends, and this is why I love the Old Testament. 30:14.559 --> 30:18.224 [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't compete with Jesus, but it creates an ache for him. 30:20.023 --> 30:30.527 [SPEAKER_01]: with all of these false starts and a loving, kind, merciful, just God, holding out His mercy to people who continually choose violence. 30:31.547 --> 30:37.190 [SPEAKER_01]: Until one day it is that violence that justifies God's wrath in Jesus. 30:40.451 --> 30:43.492 [SPEAKER_01]: The gospel isn't that you become the hero of your own story. 30:50.324 --> 30:52.187 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, maybe some of you were there today too. 30:55.171 --> 31:01.160 [SPEAKER_01]: You feel like, man, and it feels awkward every time, you come into a church like this. 31:01.180 --> 31:05.486 [SPEAKER_01]: You feel like you're connected people like this and we're singing these words and you just feel like a fraud. 31:06.567 --> 31:09.508 [SPEAKER_01]: If I, that's not me, I don't deserve to be here. 31:09.528 --> 31:12.488 [SPEAKER_01]: I shouldn't be here, I'm so broken. 31:12.508 --> 31:18.869 [SPEAKER_01]: There's all this thing, I'm a failed, I'm a failed leader, I'm a failed husband, a failed wife, a failed son. 31:18.889 --> 31:20.790 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I should be here. 31:21.030 --> 31:27.111 [SPEAKER_01]: I want to tell you guys we're all living in that ache and our hope is the one who never fails. 31:29.432 --> 31:31.292 [SPEAKER_01]: Our hope is the one who never failed. 31:34.077 --> 31:39.039 [SPEAKER_01]: Humanity still needs rescue and Jesus has accomplished that. 31:42.460 --> 31:53.483 [SPEAKER_01]: Jesus doesn't just plant a vineyard, but he says, I am the vine, and you are the branches. 31:55.163 --> 31:58.544 [SPEAKER_01]: Abide in me, and you will bear much fruit. 31:59.705 --> 32:00.585 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's stand together. 32:02.370 --> 32:05.951 [SPEAKER_01]: Come on church, come on team, come and lead us. 32:09.192 --> 32:10.633 [SPEAKER_01]: The ark is pointing to Jesus. 32:14.214 --> 32:14.734 [SPEAKER_01]: How good. 32:14.754 --> 32:27.879 [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted today, if we might stand before a holy God, the God of both the Old Testament and the new. 32:29.939 --> 32:31.260 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you can knowledge our bias. 32:33.619 --> 32:38.440 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you can acknowledge the struggle that we have with a passage like this. 32:42.322 --> 32:44.262 [SPEAKER_01]: But we can thank God for his revelation. 32:47.583 --> 32:49.384 [SPEAKER_01]: We can thank God for his mercy. 32:51.824 --> 32:54.405 [SPEAKER_01]: We can thank God that is just and true. 32:59.266 --> 33:00.727 [SPEAKER_01]: And our response could be, 33:02.228 --> 33:08.410 [SPEAKER_01]: to plant vineyards, to grow trees, who's shade we will never fully enjoy. 33:10.791 --> 33:15.013 [SPEAKER_01]: But there will be there to bring shade to those to come. 33:17.914 --> 33:22.996 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe we stand before God today in the acknowledge, God, I feel like I'm a fraud and broken. 33:23.016 --> 33:24.616 [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like Noah at the end. 33:31.290 --> 33:34.552 [SPEAKER_01]: And I want to tell you today, don't let that be the end of the story. 33:35.693 --> 33:39.555 [SPEAKER_01]: But allow that to create the ache for the one who will never fail. 33:42.036 --> 33:49.801 [SPEAKER_01]: King Jesus, who came to ransom us to love us, to save us. 33:55.444 --> 33:59.687 [SPEAKER_01]: There's so much joy permeating the Old Testament. 34:02.449 --> 34:07.413 [SPEAKER_01]: My heart was glad the Samus says when they said, let's go to the house of God. 34:14.297 --> 34:21.242 [SPEAKER_01]: The Samus said, there's joy in his presence and delight in his right hand. 34:26.686 --> 34:28.748 [SPEAKER_01]: And so Jesus, we run to you today. 34:33.330 --> 34:38.134 [SPEAKER_01]: We thank you that you shut us in, that nothing can take us from your hand. 34:38.154 --> 34:44.478 [SPEAKER_01]: I want to tell you, if you're in Christ, if you've believed in him, nothing can pluck you out of his hand. 34:46.960 --> 34:47.961 [SPEAKER_01]: He's shut you in. 34:54.746 --> 34:57.848 [SPEAKER_01]: And so Jesus, we bring you praise, we bring you honor. 35:03.612 --> 35:05.914 [SPEAKER_01]: Every environment could become an arc for others. 35:14.182 --> 35:15.123 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Jesus. 35:20.187 --> 35:21.228 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Jesus. 35:32.388 --> 35:33.470 [UNKNOWN]: Thank you, James. 35:59.180 --> 36:00.021 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's sing it together. 36:00.041 --> 36:02.042 [SPEAKER_01]: Treacherous is the sing you are good. 36:02.563 --> 36:04.444 [SPEAKER_00]: It's you are good. 36:04.464 --> 36:04.564 [SPEAKER_00]: Good. 36:05.585 --> 36:06.086 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh.