God's Grief

Problem with the world isn't out there, it's in here. The church isn't full of good people. The church is full of people who know the problem, recognize the diagnosis, and as we'll come to, and particularly come to tonight, come to the solution. Some of us might be okay for murder, but most of us, if not, don't see me afterwards. What about pride? What about envy? It all comes from the same place. It's the true definition of a broken heart. [00:18:11] (37 seconds)  #BrokenHeartTruth

Don't leave here just aware that you're a broken person who does the wrong things. That's not how God leaves you. Don't leave here thinking God's soft, and he'll just take you as you camp, and you can just do your own thing. That's not the gospel either. But this morning, let each one of us be so aware that we are so unworthy, and so aware that Christ has made us worthy, that we'd have, once again, as Psalm 51 was speaking about, Alan so well emphasized for us, the joy of our salvation. [00:42:00] (41 seconds)  #JoyOfSalvation

But here in Genesis six, we see what we see throughout the whole Bible emphasised time and time again is that we are saved by faith, not by works, by grace, not by effort. Noah was rescued not because he was better than everyone else, although he stood out, but because he was saved, because he walked with God, he had a relationship with God. He knew God in a personal way. And it's that and that alone that saves Noah and his family. [00:38:24] (40 seconds)  #SavedByFaith

Now it doesn't mean that they were as evil as they could be. That's not the purpose of what God is expressing here in Genesis six. The fancy word for it in theology is called total depravity. What it means, really, is that there is no part of our life which has not been affected and ruined by sin. It's not just your thoughts. It's not just your desires. It's not just, you know, whatever, fill in the blank, your relationships. Every part of us, from top to bottom, has been affected by the fall. [00:19:22] (34 seconds)  #TotalDepravity

As we go on through these chapters, we're gonna see Noah was not Jesus. He wasn't a perfect man. That is not what made Noah righteous. It was not that he was sinless. This expression that he was blameless in his generation was to say that he stood out from the way the land was going. What made Noah righteous was that he walked with God. [00:37:43] (27 seconds)  #WalkedWithGod

If you think you're upset when people wrong you, imagine how much it grieves God, and yet he willingly puts himself in this position, because there's his love for you and for me. But God's love doesn't mean that he's any less God. Remember, God isn't just a God of love, he's also a God of holiness, and justice, and righteousness. And the fact that sin grieves him means that he won't just rule and ignore it. He won't let sin have it stay unaddressed. [00:28:29] (35 seconds)  #LoveAndHoliness

But God knowing what the poorer was, what the sickness was, what the worse was, fully understanding everything involved in that, which we make ourselves, particularly in marriage, we make in total ignorance, don't we? But God does not make it ignorance. He commits himself knowing the cost and still willingly creates us despite the cost. That's the definition of love. [00:27:44] (34 seconds)  #LoveDespiteCost

This is the same God today as it was yesterday, and he'll be the same tomorrow. God is serious about sin, he has an answer for it, and he answers with a righteous wrath. And we completely miss God when we think he's loving and gracious without understanding the cost of how much he loves us. God is so loving towards us, but he's also at the very same time too righteous and just to just leave sin unanswered. [00:29:57] (30 seconds)  #JustAndLovingGod