Sermon for October 10th (Noah)

Today you will be hearing a lot about a man named Noah who was made famous by building a big boat called an ark. But while it’s easy to focus on the animals and the logistics of 40 days and 40 nights of rain, I believe that this story is about something much more relevant to most of us. But first, how about a quick review from last week. The story about Cain and Abel. I know, I know, sorry to bring that back up again, but understanding that story makes a big difference in how we understand this story about Noah. Now, if you weren’t here last week, please feel free to go back and listen to the sermon online (off of our website) or read it on my blog as well at home. But for those of you who were here the pressure is on!

Why did God favor Abel and his offering and not Cain? Just to make it easier I’ll make this multiple choice: God favored Abel because: A. God likes sheep fat more than whole wheat grain. B. Abel brought the firstlings of the flock while Cain brought grain. C. Abel tried harder than Cain. Or D. God favored Abel because of Abel’s faith. The answer is: D. God favored Abel because of his faith. How do we know? That’s what the text in Hebrews 11 says. It wasn’t Abel’s offering that God favored, it was Abel’s faith that mattered.

So, it’s a new week and we’ve got a new hero of the faith to look at: Noah. Now, how did Noah find favor? (We always find a way to get confused at this point. We tend to forget all the lessons we learned from Cain and Abel.) There are two verses that we must line up, one against the other, to figure this out. First, verse Genesis 6, verse 5, “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” Every inclination? Every inclination. All the time? All the time! Even Noah? Well, is he part of the earth? Yes. Wouldn’t he have the same inclinations, the same thoughts and the same heart? Yes. “All have fallen short of the glory of God.” Even Noah. So please don’t forget that part when you read what verse 9 says, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.”

“Noah was a righteous man”, correct, but before we ever hear that Noah was a righteous man, we hear that, “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” in verse 7. Noah found favor with God BEFORE we are ever told how righteous and blameless he is! And just like Abel before him, Hebrews 11 says this, “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.” It does NOT say that God picks the most righteous man on earth to build an arc. It does NOT say that there was only one good guy left on earth so God had to pick that one. “By faith Noah, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.” God chose Noah just like he chose Abel.

Now, I am sure that Noah was a great guy because the Bible says it is so. “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time”. I hear about these people all the time! Well, sure he doesn’t believe in God, “But he is a great guy!” “I’m not sure if he believes in Jesus, but you’ll never hear anyone say anything bad about him!”

Martin Luther explained that we each have two different reputations. We look one way to the world around us, our community, our family and so on. And we look one way to God. We have one kind of righteousness in the eyes of the world. A “civil righteousness” he called it. So we are good fathers and mothers, or we are awful cooks, or we are shady businesspeople, or we are great athletes, or we are generous givers. “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time.” Good job Noah! But in God’s eyes, we don’t look good because of what we do, but because of faith in God alone. In God’s eyes, he saw that every inclination of the thoughts of people were only evil all the time. Bad job Noah and bad job all of us! “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” Not by how he acted, but by faith in God alone. And this is really interesting. After the text says that “Noah was a righteous man and blameless among the people of his time” it says this, “and he walked with God.”

For the next several weeks, I am going to be focusing on different aspects of your walk with God. Last week, I talked about trust. God favored Abel. Abel trusted in God’s choice. This week, I’d like to talk about another important part of your faith walk, a part that Noah was really good at. Listening. Noah listened to God.

Here’s an interesting tidbit about the story of Noah and the ark. Do you know what Noah said when God called him to build the ark? Nothing. Do you know what Noah replied when God told him that it was going to flood? Nothing. Do you know what Noah said when God made a covenant with him to never flood the earth again? Nothing. That’s because in this Bible story, Noah has no speaking parts. God does all the talking. Does that mean that Noah was mute? No. After they left the ark, Noah got drunk one night and passed out naked. When Noah found out that one of his sons had told his brothers about it, he spoke up very clearly and cursed his son. Pretty messed up, huh? But remember, Noah was not a perfect hero of the faith, he simply listened when God spoke to him.

Try this for a moment. We are going to pray to God . . . in silence. We are going to ask God to speak to us and then we are going to listen to him. For all of you in Sunday school, you should know how this works. You’ve been learning about the prophet Samuel. When the prophet Samuel was just a little boy, he heard God’s voice and was told to say this, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” I’m sure that many of you pray and tell all your troubles to God, you ask him for things, you thank him for things, you praise his holy name . . . but have you ever taken the time to listen to what he might have to say back to you? This might be a good time to start. Let us pray, “Speak to us, O Lord, your servants are listening.”

Imagine if you took thirty seconds, a minute or more after you prayed to listen to what God had to say back. Maybe you would hear a still small voice, maybe you would simply have a feeling inside you pulling you in a direction that you couldn’t resist, maybe you won’t hear anything. Your God is a living God, a God who spoke the world into existence and continues to sustain you with his breath of life. He is still speaking. Are you listening?

Noah listened to God. He didn’t just HEAR God, he heard and followed—he listened. Some people worry that they might hear their own voice and their own ideas, or worse, the voice of an evil spirit, not God, when they pray. This is certainly a possibility. How might you know the difference? John 14, “Jesus said, The Holy Spirit will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” And again in John 16, “He will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Jesus and the Holy Spirit say the same things.

For example, if you ask God for guidance about staying faithful to your wife and you feel certain that you hear a voice say that you should have an affair instead, then you can be 100% certain that this is NOT the Holy Spirit. Why? Because God does not contradict himself by saying “Do not commit adultery” in one place of scripture and then change his mind later on. But when you are struggling with temptation, you may also hear a voice say, “I will not leave you or forsake you.” That might not be the answer you were looking for, but it might give you the strength to stay committed and the assurance that you are forgiven for even strong temptations. Noah was favored by faith alone. But when he listened to what God commanded him, he became a hero of faith.

The story of Noah’s ark isn’t really about animals is it—it’s about God’s mercy and Noah’s listening. How might you involve listening into your walk of faith? Besides having some silent time at the end of a prayer, how else might you listen? Coming to church and staying connected with the ministry of word and sacrament is important. When you hear the forgiveness of yours sins, when you are challenged or strengthened in the words of a faith talk, song or sermon, you are listening and walking with God in faith.

But reading the word of God, studying the Bible daily, might be the best way to listen to God. I don’t mean simply “skimming” the text, but expecting the words to speak to you. Whenever you open the pages of a Bible, you are in the presence of a living God who is still speaking and you have the opportunity to be changed. God loves to hear from you in prayer, but in the words of the Bible, God is speaking directly to you. Comforting you when you are distressed, judging you when you are sinning and warning you of times to come. Noah was favored by God, and God warned him about things not yet seen. That’s great. But I am also thankful that Noah listened. In holy fear he built an ark to save his family. God might have something to warn you about, but you’ve never listened to what he has to say. Take the time to listen.

Listening does not just mean hearing, but trusting and acting on the words you hear. Trusting God is an important part of faith, like Abel, but listening to the words God speaks might save you one day, like it did Noah. In the words of the prophet Nahum, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in a day of trouble; he protects those who take refuge in him, even in a rushing flood.” The Lord promises to speak. He has chosen to be your God and favors you because of faith alone. But remember the story of Noah. When God speaks, you have the chance to listen. It might make a really big difference for you and your family some day. Amen.

Sermon for October 3rd (Cain and Abel)

It’s time today to talk about everyone’s favorite Bible story: Cain and Abel. What? It’s not your favorite Bible story? What?! You don’t know the story of Cain and Abel?! Well, I’m not surprised. Most people don’t really know the story of Cain and Abel and, even if you do know it, it’s probably not your favorite because the story creates problems for us. Many Christians deal with the problems by trying to explain things away, but it is time to stop that. We need to read the text and stop there without adding or subtracting from it in order to truly understand who this God is that we worship and what that means for you and me.

Genesis 4:3, “In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.” What is your first reaction to this reading? It’s probably to ask a simple question: why? Why did God look with favor upon Abel and not Cain? We want God to look upon us with favor and so we want to end up like Abel and not Cain. Why did God look with favor upon Abel and not Cain?

Read the text. What does it say? Does it say why? No it does not. Read the text! I’ve heard so many explanations that aren’t there! Everyone is interested in judging whose offering was the best: they say that Cain must have brought the chaff instead of the grain, or that an animal sacrifice would have been worth more than grain or that it was the first fruits of the flock rather than the leftover grain or that Cain didn’t really care while Abel did or that God likes meat more than grain. Enough speculation. What does the text say? “The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.” No reason is given here.

You must look at another text, from Hebrews 11, to find your answer, “By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings.” Look again at that text from Genesis, “The Lord looked with favor on Abel AND his offering.” God is looking not simply at the difference between lamb or wheat. The offering is acceptable according to who is giving it. In other words, the offering itself doesn’t make the giver acceptable, the giver makes the offering acceptable. Abel is accepted by faith alone.

Let me say this in another way through a story told by Jesus in Mark chapter 12, “Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.” Which offering is better in this case? Well, the answer is obvious! A large amount of money is better than a fraction of a penny! If God is interested in you giving him the best of the best then the rich people should be favored over the widow. But that is not how this story ends, “Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” What does this story tell us? Only something we already knew from Samuel chapter 16, “The Lord does not see as mortals see. They look on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart.”

“By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did.” God did not look simply at the grain or the firstlings, he looked at Abel AND his offering. At Cain AND his offering. He looked at their hearts and favored the heart of Abel because of the faith he saw there. Again, should this surprise us? That God cares about faith and not what we bring him? No. Romans chapter 3, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.” And Habakkuk 2, “The righteous will live by faith.” Cain and Abel is a story about faith.

But that puts us in a bind. Because faith is not something we own. Faith is not something we can attain as if we can grow a bigger faith muscle to show off to God. Faith is not another work that we can do if we really try hard enough. If God’s favor doesn’t have to do with the gifts you bring to him, whether it be firstlings of the flock, or the fruit of the ground, or a lot of money or a couple of copper coins, then how can we come to him and offer him our faith as if it were something we accomplished. “For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing, it is a gift of God.” Ephesians 2:9. Faith is God’s gift to you.

But if God favored Abel instead of Cain and it wasn’t because of his offering, but by faith alone . . . given to him as a gift from God. Then God just chose Abel instead of Cain! He gave Abel faith and then favored Abel! And that doesn’t seem fair!

Probably because it’s not. It’s not fair. That’s the problem we have with God. And that’s why everyone hates this story by the way. They’d rather change the text and make God look nicer or else change the text to give us a chance to look better. We don’t want salvation to be up to God and God alone. We really do want it to be up to us. We want to be able to choose God and get the glory in the end. But Paul says in Galatians, “The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” If Abel had gained God’s favor with his offering, God’s mercy would have been hidden. It had to be received by faith alone. “For if being made right with God could be gained any other way, Christ died for nothing.”

But Jesus Christ did not die for nothing. He died for you. In this election, God gets the only vote. Yes he chose you. End of story. He decided to save you, though you do not deserve it. Period. According to the first chapter of Ephesians, “In Jesus Christ, we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.” Words like that don’t leave a lot of space for you and your good works to earn salvation. It doesn’t even leave a lot of room for your great professions of faith unless you are praising God for the faith HE GAVE YOU as a gift!

Our tendency, as sinful people, is to say, “no thanks!” when God wants to save us all by himself and argue that we need to do a little something. Maybe “accept God’s gift of faith into our hearts” or at the very least not “reject” God’s love. But once again we are hemmed in by the Bible, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, together they have become worthless; there is no one who does good not even one.” All reject God. Yes, even you. That is what it means to be a sinner. The question is, when you reject God, what does he do?

Jesus said, “You did not choose me, I chose you and appointed you to bear fruit, fruit that will last.” When Peter betrayed Jesus, Jesus returned with the forgiveness of sins and a call to feed his sheep. Our fear of election is that God is taking all of our freedom away by telling us he loves us unconditionally. But the joy of election comes when you realize that you’ve only used your freedom to reject, betray and fall away from God’s love. “No one seeks God. All have turned away.” And yet God continues to pursue you with his mercy and love. There are only two choices left: Freedom or Trust.

If you choose that you want the freedom to reject God then I am sure you will. Congratulations! But if you trust God, then come what may, good or bad in your life, you will never be separated from His love. God favored Abel and Abel trusted God. Abel could’ve argued that God was wrong, because Abel was the second born, an unworthy choice. Abel could’ve argued that he wanted the freedom to choose God. Instead, Abel trusted God’s judgment. God did not favor Cain, but still loved Him enough to warn His beloved child, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” But instead of trusting God’s choice, Cain decided to use his freedom to kill his brother Abel. It’s easy to trust in God when God is favoring you, when your health is good, when money is coming in, when everyone loves you. But faith is put to the test, when life is hard. But whether you feel favored by God or not, God calls you to trust him.

Your answer to the choice: freedom or trust, will be based on who you believe is more able to raise the dead in the end. We normally enjoy freedom until we are unable to do anything anymore—six feet underground. Then you start needing an electing God who doesn’t just talk in generalities or in explanations, but actually DOES things through an actual choice. Not a God who writes down in a book that he loves people, but a God who sends a preacher to make it clear that God loves you.

Has God simply “predestined” us for salvation or damnation and determined our every step? Here’s my answer to that: God does not care about theological musings. Whether everyone is saved or not, you’ve still got to tell them or else how can they have faith in Jesus? And if you are worried that someone is predestined for damnation, that would be a great time to let them know God’s unconditional love is for them. You can’t put your trust in philosophical explanations like “universal salvation” or “double predestination”. An electing God doesn’t simply “love the world” he loves you in particular. He doesn’t “condemn the world” but came to save through the world through faith in a particular man, Jesus.

No one likes the story of Cain and Abel, but there will come a time, perhaps that time is today, when you must follow one or the other: You must either walk away from God and trust in your freedom like Cain or trust in God and in his power to save you like Abel. The good news is that, because of Jesus, God favors you. You are His chosen one. When you find yourself believing that, trusting that good word from God, you can be assured that, just like Abel, you have been favored by faith alone.