Covenant - God's Covenant With Noah

Read Genesis 9: 1 – 17

The beginning of a new year is the time a lot of people make a number of promises to themselves and call it a resolution. These promises that we make to ourselves are often related to improving our lives in some way. Perhaps we might resolve to eat better, or exercise more, or even lose weight. But, these resolutions, these promises that we make to ourselves are usually broken, busted or forgotten by mid-February or at best early march.

Fortunately, the things that God promises us are a little more permanent and reliable.

Over the coming weeks we are going to have a look at the idea of biblical covenants, particularly looking at the major things that God has covenanted, or promised to do for us.

The very first covenant recorded in the bible is between God and Noah and his sons and is the subject of todays message.

Most of us will know the story of Noah and the flood; God looked down at the earth and saw that the wickedness of the people who lived here was very great, and that all of their thoughts were evil and depraved. In fact, the bible tells us that the earth was full of corruption and violence. (Don't take my word for it, check out the chapters before chapter 9 for the unabridged story)

All of this corruption and violence his made God sorry that He had created humanity, and He decided that He would go back to the start. Where once in the beginning, the earth was covered by water, God would again cover the earth with water wiping away all of the sin and corruption that the people were drowning in. And then, once the water had purified the world of the evil that consumed it and then subsided, God would start anew and create a better world.

One man, out of all of the people that lived during those times found favour with God. God, seeing the character of this man, chose Noah to create a giant ark, or ship, that would hold 2 of every kind of animal.

Once the ark was completed, and the animals were safely on board with Noah, his wife, his sons and his daughter-in-laws, God forced all of the fountains of the deep to pour out water, and He also made it rain for forty days and nights until the whole world was once again covered by water. After another forty days had passed, the flood began to subside until eventually Noah and all of the others that had been on the ark were able to leave and enter a new world that had been purified of the violence and corruption that had infested it before.

(Sort of anyway. As it turns out, wherever humans have free will, we will have the capacity to sin. And if you read the chapters after the flood, you will see that it didn't take long for the sons of Noah to depart from the way God desired them to live.)

After they left the ark, God gave to Noah and his sons the same command that had been given to Adam and Eve after the completion of the creation of the world. God told Noah and his family to be fruitful and to multiply.

So that Noah and his family were able to do what had been asked of them, God told Noah that He had given to humanity all of the animals of the world to eat as food, but warned against eating blood.

In these commands, God also reminded Noah that humanity held the future of the planet in their hands, and made it clear to Noah that human life had in it an inherent sanctity. God told Noah that He would require a reckoning for every human life that is lost because of the unique way they had been created, in the image of their creator.

After speaking to Noah, and giving Noah these instructions God then promises something to Noah in return.

God promises Noah that never again will He wipe out all of humanity with a flood. And God goes on to say that whenever the clouds fill the sky and we see a rainbow, both us and God can look at it and remember what has been promised to us.

So what does this mean to us at the beginning of 2012?

Now more than ever it seems, we are being told that our world is in upheaval, more and more we are hearing prophecies of apocalyptic events that are supposed to end the world.

Most recently we have been told that according to the Mayan calendar 2012 is supposed to be when all life is packed up and finished off. In addition to the misunderstood reading of a calendar that is millennia old, over the last 12 months we have seen or heard other crackpot “prophets” declare that the end of the world is coming very soon, and then carried on as the alleged date of Armageddon rolled around and passed without incident.

In these times of interest and paranioa regarding the ending of our world, times where we are told that life as we know it is going to cease, whether it be as a result of the collective evil of humanity or by the hand of God, we can reject the doom and gloom and take hope and even joy in God’s promise to Noah.

God promises that never again will He wipe out all of creation in a flood. In fact, as we read the bible we can see that God is actually more concerned with making creation new again as opposed to wiping it out.

In the book of Revelation, at the end of the bible, we read in chapter 21 how God wants to make all things new. Yes the old heaven and the old earth will pass away, but that is only because God will have created a new heaven and a new earth where the evil and tragedy that corrupts our world no longer exists.

And while the day that will happen is closer now than it ever has been, there is one time that you can be sure that it will not be.

Basically, to work out when Jesus will return and this way of living will end, look up every date that anyone has ever said the world will end and cross it off of your list.

Jesus has told us very clearly that no one knows the time or the date , so anyone claiming to know when he will return and this way of living will cease is wrong.

I suspect that even though God wants us to be ready for His return, He would prefer for us to be less concerned about the when and where or even how of His return and would actually rather us be more concerned with what it is that we will be doing when Jesus returns and invites us to live a life in eternity.

God desires for us all to be in a process of becoming more and more like Him through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

God desires that we allow His Holy Spirit to make us new, to renew our hearts and minds, and ultimately for us to join in with Him in working to bring renewal to our own lives and to the lives of our families, our friends, our communities and, indeed, to our world.

This year, as 2011 passes away and as 2012 begins; will you join with me in making one resolution that will still be in place, not just in March, but in 10 or even 20 years’ time?

This new year’s day, will you join with me in committing to allowing God to everyday make us a new being, waking each morning in the knowledge that we are in a constant process of being made more and more like our creator?

And this year, will you remember every time you see a rainbow in the sky that God loves us. And when you see that rainbow will you also remember that instead of looking at us and wishing that He had never created us, God actually looks at us through Jesus and desires to draw us closer to Him, that we might know Him and the One He sent as He indeed knows us?

I hope that you will.