The Limits and Benefits of Noah's Ark

Last week in my sermon, I communicated that God sets limits which create order amidst chaos. Also, we surpass God's limits and create chaos amidst God's order. However, God still has a surpassing love for His creation. This is a theme that not only runs throughout the Bible, but also throughout human history. Allow me to offer some observations about the account of Noah to highlight this theme and help us examine our own lives.

First, Noah was eager to stay within God's limits. The obvious limit was the Ark. Noah and his family had been in the ark for a year before they left it. But they would not leave it until God had shown them it was time. Personally speaking, when we drive a distance of one hour in the car, my kids are asking me, "Are we there yet?" "How much longer?" Yet, Noah, after a year in the ark, was still only eager to remain within the protection and provision of God's limit...the ark. Am I willing to persevere, content and patient in God's timing for my life?

Next, the Hebrew text tells us that "the ark came to rest." This is ironic because Noah's name sounds like the Hebrew word for comfort and actually means "rest." Noah's father Lamech desired his son to bring rest to the world, hence he named him Noah. In fact, rest did come to the world after the flood and through Noah's obedience to remain within God's limits. However, the rest came at a large cost. Justice was served upon the world by God and the population of the world died. However, it must be noted that the world was given grace by God to be saved within the limits of God's provision, i.e. the ark. Yet the world refused, choosing to surpass God's gracious limit, and thus the world experienced chaos, death and destruction.

Rest has come to the world again, through another offspring of Lamech, Jesus Christ. The world can find rest in Jesus Christ, if only we respond to God's invitation for salvation. However, it must be noted again, that this rest is afforded at a tremendous cost, the slaughter of God's son Jesus Christ, who did not simply die for us, but sacrificially and subsitutionally took our sin upon himself. This is God's grace, which just like Noah is offered, but will not be offered forever. Will we respond to God's gracious invitation to leave everything in order to live in His beneficial limits found in a life of service to Jesus Christ?

Beams Away!