The first reading is Genesis chapter 6, and we're going to read from verses 5 to 7, verse 1.
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man
and animals and creeping things, and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have
made them.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
These are the generations of Noah.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
Noah walked with God, and Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence.
And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the
earth.
And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled
with violence through them.
Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.
Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch.
This is how you are to make it.
The length of the ark, 300 cubits.
Its breadth, 50 cubits.
And its height, 30 cubits.
Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above.
And set the door of the ark in its side.
Make it with lower, second, and third decks.
For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is
the breath of life under heaven.
Everything that is on the earth shall die.
But I will establish my covenant with you.
And you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.
And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark,
to keep them alive with you.
They shall be male and female.
Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds.
Of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind.
Two of every sort shall come into you to keep them alive.
Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up.
It shall serve as food for you and for them.
Noah did this.
He did all that the Lord commanded him.
Then the Lord said to Noah, Go into the ark, you and all your household.
For I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.
Good morning, everyone.
I saw Ruby somewhere.
Hi, Ruby.
Great to have you back with us from America, which is why I'm pointing out Ruby and embarrassing
her right now.
I'm just going to give you a heads up.
The three sections of this sermon, the first one is a lot longer.
So if at the second interval you're like, Oh, we're here for a while.
It's okay.
We'll be okay.
All right.
Why don't we pray as we come to God's word?
Let's pray.
Father, I pray as we come to a passage that is well known in one sense,
even we think as Christians.
Lord, your word is alive and active and we've probably all got assumptions about this story
that need correcting and we need further insight.
So I pray that you would give us a learning spirit as we come to your word.
Father, show us your character in all its glory, I pray.
Amen.
Well, you can fear the God of the flood, but can you love him?
The pictures in our children's Bibles, maybe some people in their children's bedrooms have
a mural of the flood, of Noah's Ark really, on the wall.
They don't do justice to this sentence that is in the passage.
Everything on the dry land, in whose nostrils was the breath of life, died.
Like, this is a horrific story.
Like, what has happened from chapter 1, verse 31?
God saw all that he had made and behold, it was very good.
What would motivate such a life-giving God?
We saw in Genesis 1, he loves order out of the chaos.
He loves peace.
He loves life.
What would bring him to bring such destructive chaos of the flood?
Like, is he like a big bully at school?
You just better not get him upset.
Is he like the ancient Babylonian ideas of the gods?
Unpredictable.
He's just moody.
Watch out, kids, if your dad wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.
Is he moody?
Unpredictable.
Ancient Babylonians, the gods sent the flood because people were noisy.
What idea of God do you see here in the flood?
You can fear him, that's for sure, but can you love him?
Well, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have loved one another before anything else was.
And so he had no reason to be angry.
No reason to be angry until evil and darkness came.
Listen to the testimony of, I'm going to mispronounce this guy's name, but Miroslav Volf, a Croatian.
I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God.
Isn't God love?
God loves every person and every creature.
And then he recalls the war in his hometown and the destruction that happened there.
And then he says, think of Rwanda in 1994, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in 100 days.
1994, this happened.
How did God react to the carnage?
By doting on the perpetrators in a grandparently fashion?
By refusing to condemn the bloodbath, but instead affirming the perpetrator's basic goodness?
I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn't wrathful at the sight of the world's evil.
God isn't wrathful in spite of being love.
God is wrathful because God is love.
That's his testimony.
Isaiah 28-21 says that God's wrath is strange to God.
It's foreign to him.
It's his foreign work.
It's not essential to him.
It's what love does.
Pure love does when it sees evil.
God blesses what is good, what gives life, what enhances life.
And he curses, he punishes what's evil, what destroys and takes away from life.
Could you love him if he saw evil and didn't care?
Could you love such a God who didn't care about evil?
I couldn't.
Could you love a God who blessed it?
No way.
As creator, he alone has the wisdom, he has the power, and he has the right to be the judge of all the earth.
And that's what we see here at the flood.
Now, I reckon the need for justice, it's in our DNA, isn't it?
Anyone heard of Sherlock Holmes?
Anyone not heard of Sherlock Holmes?
Sherlock Holmes?
Okay.
Or even if you haven't, you're probably too embarrassed to put your hand up.
But Sherlock, why is he such a classic?
I love Sherlock Holmes.
I reckon it's because we need someone strong.
Someone wise enough who sees through the truth and can untangle it,
and he's able to catch the evildoer and bring them to justice, right?
He's stronger than even Moriarty.
Like, isn't that why we love Sherlock Holmes?
Or I love Sherlock Holmes.
It's in our DNA, justice.
I don't know what you think about movies and books where the villain doesn't get justice.
How do you find those?
Like, one evidence that Emma is more godly than me, this is just one of the evidences,
is that when we watch a show or movie where there's just injustice after injustice,
I feel a bit sick and uncomfortable.
Emma, she has to walk away.
Like, she can't stand to watch it.
I think she's closer to the character of God.
God can't stand to watch it.
What God saw in Noah's generation grieved him to his heart.
Working through the Constitution, I'm looking at sentences differently, reading the Constitution.
Just like, can you find a loophole in this sentence?
John, you must be doing this all the time.
Can you find a...
If you want to not have a loophole for future generations, how do you need a word this sentence?
Let's see if you can find a loophole in chapter 6, verse 5.
What a sentence.
I can't find a loophole in that.
It's not necessarily saying all the behaviour looked evil all the time.
But it's saying God saw the heart.
He saw the design, the purpose, the goal of every thought.
Every goal was self-centred, was evil.
It was trying to take away from the good life God had designed.
Now, before we just chuck our own imaginations in of what that looked like, Genesis has already told us.
The most immediate context shows us that even the descendants of Seth, the people who were holding on to the knowledge of God,
they were worshipping, calling on the name of the Lord, even these descendants were now...
They were like Adam and Eve, the original sin.
They saw and they took.
They saw the attractiveness of the descendants of Cain and they took.
Look, even they are corrupted now.
If even the godly are corrupted, human race is in trouble.
And we've seen in chapter 4 how violent that taking looks like.
It looks like Cain.
It looks like Lamech.
Now, apparently in the Hebrew, the word for destroy sounds like the word for corrupt.
Which is just an indicator that God's judgment, it's not excessive, it's fitting, it's reaping what we've sown.
It's completing the destruction that their actions have already begun.
I don't think we've got an issue with the idea that there is such a thing as good and evil.
Some people might, I don't know, philosophically debate that, but I don't know.
I don't believe anyone actually lives like that.
But you've got another movie, a recent one, Noah, Russell Crowe in it.
That movie had no problem with the idea of good and evil, but the point of that movie, the message...
I don't know if you've seen it or not, but it's animals land good, humankind bad.
That's the message of that.
The world would be a better place if we weren't here, is the message of the movie.
It's not the message here.
So I don't think we have a problem with distinguishing good and evil, but I think we've got a problem with we don't get to determine what is good and evil.
God discerns what's good and evil.
He's the only one wise enough to do that.
I can only see your behaviour.
I can't see your heart.
I can't see your thoughts.
God does.
I don't even know my own motives sometimes.
I can't untangle them a lot of the time.
Have you ever had an occasion where you thought someone was doing the wrong thing and later on you're like,
oh, hang on.
They had a really good purpose for doing that.
I don't think we're wise enough to distinguish good from evil.
I think of the priest Eli thinking Hannah was drunk.
She wasn't drunk.
She was pouring out her grief to God in prayer.
I don't think we're wise enough to see the heart, but God is.
Only our creator is wise enough to be the judge.
I was skiing at Thredbo one time years ago now and it was a really rainy couple of days and where we were skiing,
we were trying to traverse across this flat section and the water had come over the top.
So we're just waiting for some help from, I don't know what you call them, employees.
We're waiting for help to get across.
But while we're waiting, the sound of rushing waters was coming from the mountain above.
And when the Bible talks about the sound of mighty waters, it was deafening.
And it was this, I don't know what you call it, landslide of snow, water.
It was coming right towards us.
Now, obviously I'm here today, but there was a cliff on the other side.
And this avalanche coming down, it missed me by, I don't know, five metres maybe.
I had no chance.
I don't think I would have survived if I was five metres forward.
I was powerless.
I was absolutely powerless.
And I think that's what we see here in the flood.
God has, as creator, he has all the power, which is really good news.
For those who are oppressing people with their power, God has the power to bring about justice.
He's got the wisdom and he's got the power to execute justice.
And he alone has the right, because it's his creation, to judge.
The flood shows us that the judge of all the earth, he can't stand to look on evil.
And it warns us today that we learn from elsewhere in scripture that a worldwide judgement is coming again.
Jesus himself, don't separate Old Testament, God of wrath, New Testament, God of love.
That's a misunderstanding of God.
Jesus himself says,
It's a warning to us.
Don't let anyone redefine what salvation means.
Can I suggest just be careful of people subtly changing why Jesus came to save us.
Jesus gave his blood to absorb the anger of God against evil.
Don't let anyone move us away from the idea of God's anger.
That is why we need salvation.
So the judge of all the earth, he sees the evil, but here's also the good news.
He sees the righteous.
Abraham later calls on God,
Will not the judge of all the earth do right?
Like talking about Sodom,
Will you just sweep the righteous away with the wicked?
What you do right?
Imagine saying that to God.
What a man of faith.
Yes, he will do right.
He sees the righteous.
He sees Noah.
Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.
One man.
Now what made Noah different?
Favour is the same word as grace.
Unmerited kindness.
The idea that he found favour.
He didn't earn favour.
The prophecy at his birth, if you remember last week,
before he'd done anything good or bad,
there was a prophecy that he would bring rest.
I think they're all suggesting that God freely chose to give his grace to Noah.
In other words, verse 8 is the reason for verse 9,
and not the other way around.
God chose to give favour, grace to Noah,
and that's why he's a righteous man.
He walked righteously.
This is a really big term, righteous.
The first time we get it in scripture,
it's to act according to the relationship God has with you.
He's blameless.
He's without blemish.
He walks with God.
We've seen that term before.
And what we see in the story is,
and Tinian brought this out in the kids' talk,
is his obedience.
He's received the instructions.
In verse 22, Noah did this.
He did all that God commanded of him.
And 7 verse 5 says,
Noah did,
let me find it, 7 verse 5,
Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.
So a close walk with God looks like obedience.
I think we often use that phrase
in terms of our feelings and things.
But a close walk with God looks like obedience.
Noah alone, he's righteous.
We're not told about his wife.
We're not told about his kids and their wives.
That's not the important thing.
The important thing is they belong to Noah.
They belong to the one righteous man.
Now where did his obedience come from?
We've got Hebrews 11, 7 that helps us with this.
By faith, Noah,
being warned by God concerning events yet unseen,
in reverent fear,
constructed an ark for the saving of his household.
By this he condemned the world
and became an heir of the righteousness
that comes by faith.
All Noah had,
he couldn't see the rain clouds coming.
He couldn't see the judgment.
He had God's word.
He had his warning.
He had his promise
that he would save him.
That's all he had, God's word.
For years,
like at least 55 years,
years and years.
Imagine cutting your own timber
and milling it
and then constructing that ark.
The job itself,
like you put that order in at Saddington's,
it would take them a while,
even at Saddington's with our technology.
Even the job itself,
let alone,
I'm going to use some poetic license here,
but imagine the taunts he got,
the ridicule,
maybe the threats
like every sprinkle of rain
before the flood came.
You could imagine the cheers at Noah.
He believed God's warning.
He took God at his word.
Obedience comes from faith
in God's word.
But Noah's obedience
isn't the main focus.
I'm glad Tin brought this out
in the kids' talk as well.
The main focus is seen,
chapters 6 through 8,
is the structure of the story,
is what's called a chiasm.
Once you learn the term,
everyone's looking for chiasms everywhere,
but here is a chiasm.
A chiasm is a mirror image
of themes
where it's working inwards
and the centre
is the main point.
It's a thing
to take away from it.
I'm not going to go through the whole story.
I'm going to try and tell you
the mirror image.
God resolves to destroy
the corrupt race.
And then at the end of chapter 8,
the Lord resolves
not to destroy mankind.
Next bit in.
Noah builds an ark.
Noah builds an altar.
Coming again.
The Lord commands Noah's family
to enter the ark.
He commands the family
to leave the ark.
The flood begins.
The earth dries out.
The flood lasts 150 days,
covering the mountain.
The flood recedes 150 days.
The mountains become visible.
And here's the heart of the story.
Chapter 8, verse 1.
But God remembered Noah
and all the beasts
and all the livestock
that were with him in the ark.
This isn't like our human remembering.
Three hours after you should have
picked your son up
from soccer practice.
Noah.
It's not our remembering.
God's remembering means
God always acts
according to his covenant commitment.
Always.
He keeps his promises.
He's a covenant-keeping God.
That's why Noah survived.
It's the fundamental reason
why Noah and his family survived.
He remembered his covenant.
It's the fundamental reason
why Jesus went to the cross.
It's the fundamental reason
why faith in Jesus means
we will sail through death
and judgment into eternal life.
He keeps his word.
God's word.
It's good news.
Okay.
I'm going to invite Gareth up
for the second, shorter reading.
Thanks, Gary.
So our next reading is chapter 8
and it's verses 20 to 9, verse 1.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord
and took some of every clean animal
and some of every clean bird
and offered a burnt offering
on the altar.
And when the Lord smelled
the pleasing aroma,
the Lord said in his heart,
I will never again curse the ground
because of man.
The intention of man's heart
is evil from his youth.
Neither will I ever again strike down
every living creature
as I have done.
While the earth remains,
seed time and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night,
shall not cease.
And God blessed Noah
and his sons and said to them,
Be fruitful and multiply
and fill the earth.
The flood is all about
new beginnings,
a fresh start,
salvation.
The parallels to Genesis 1,
there are many,
I'm not going to go through them all,
but Noah is now pictured
as a new Adam.
He's now the head of humanity.
He's a righteous head.
Things are looking hopeful.
So the flood shows us
that God is determined
to have a new beginning,
a new creation.
Evil is blotted out
and just peace
and righteousness.
And Noah leads
the new humanity
in worship.
He offers sacrifice
out of gratitude for salvation,
out of total devotion
to the Lord,
but it actually took
my three-year-old
to,
rather than my books,
to ask a really obvious question.
Why,
he didn't put it like this,
but this was the gist
of the question,
okay?
Why did God
want the animals
to be burned?
I think I,
I scared,
see him.
Why did God,
why was he pleased
with burnt offerings?
That's the first act.
Isn't there enough?
Death.
He didn't say all that,
but he was horrified
when I was reading
the story out loud.
It's a really good question.
Why was he pleased?
Because if we did that today,
from what we know
from the rest of Scripture,
he would not be pleased.
Garden of Eden,
he told Adam
to name the animals,
not to offer them.
Why was he pleased
when he smelt
the aroma?
I think we have
a hint here
that Noah
understood
that he and his family
needed to be made clean.
I think the Lord
was pleased
because he knew
what it would really take.
It wasn't these sacrifices.
He knew what it would take
to cleanse Noah.
to cleanse all
who are righteous
by faith.
It's what Hebrews
talks about,
that once
and for all sacrifice.
I think that's why
he was pleased.
When Jesus
offered himself.
We might get
the wrong idea
from the flood
that God has a,
he thinks human life
is disposable.
But the covenant
he makes with Noah
corrects any
misunderstanding here.
God has a huge
value on human life.
All human life
are in his image.
We didn't read
this section
but there's three
threats
to the sacredness
of human life
that God
protects from.
One is from animals.
To put it simply,
he's put the fear
of man in animals.
whatever it was like
in Noah's day,
he's now put us
at the top
of the food chain.
It's to stop animals
from destroying
the sacredness
of life.
He's even going
to require
reckoning of animals
who kill humans
which I'm not sure
how that works.
So firstly,
from animals.
Secondly,
from people.
Whoever sheds
the blood of man,
verse 6,
by man shall his
blood be shed
for God made man
in his own image.
There once was
protection of Cain.
Now,
there's authority
given to mankind
to punish
murder.
It restrains society
from being as evil
as it might
otherwise become again.
And then third,
most importantly,
so from animals,
from people
and from God himself.
You might want to look
at verse 14 and 15
with me.
When I bring clouds
over the earth
and the bow is seen
in the clouds,
I will remember
my covenant
that is between me
and you
and every living creature
of all flesh
and the waters
shall never again
become a flood
to destroy all flesh.
The word bow
apparently is
not bow wong
but bow
rainbow.
It's for a warrior's bow.
So when we see
a rainbow,
I don't know what you think,
oh, that's pretty.
Whatever you think
when you see a rainbow,
when God sees it,
he sees his warrior's bow
hung up.
Imagine if the rainbow
was the other way around
facing us.
you'd feel a little bit
uneasy
if it,
but it's facing him.
He's hung up his bow,
his war bow.
And he makes this promise
even though
he knows
there's going to be
violence again.
He says in verse 21,
the intention
of man's heart
is evil
from his youth.
The Lord knew
that evil
came with Noah
and his family
on that ark.
How can
the judge of the earth
hang up his bow?
All right, Gareth,
let's have that third reading.
9 verse 18
if you're following along.
The sons of Noah
who went forth
from the ark
were Shem,
Ham,
and Japheth.
Ham was the father
of Canaan.
These three
were the sons of Noah
and from these
the people
of the whole earth
were dispersed.
Noah began
to be a man
of the soil
and he planted
a vineyard.
He drank
of the wine
and became drunk
and lay uncovered
in his tent.
And Ham,
the father of Canaan,
saw the nakedness
of his father
and told his two
brothers outside.
Then Shem
and Japheth
took a garment,
laid it on both
their shoulders
and walked backward
and covered the nakedness
of their father.
Their faces
were turned backward
and they did not see
their father's nakedness.
When Noah awoke
from his wine
and knew
that his youngest son
had done
what his youngest son
had done to him,
he said,
Cursed be Canaan,
a servant of servants
shall he be
to his brothers.
He also said,
Blessed be the Lord,
the God of Shem,
and let Canaan
be his servant.
May God
enlarge Japheth
and let him dwell
in the tents of Shem.
and let Canaan
be his servant.
After the flood,
Noah lived 350 years.
All the days of Noah
were 950 years
and he died.
Well,
this is a perplexing
part of scripture
if you're still
awakened with me.
This is strange, right?
It raises a lot
of questions.
And
I'm not going
to answer them all.
I'm not even confident
I have all the answers.
But
let me show you
what I have come to.
We've seen
in the flood
that God's goal
is a new beginning,
a totally fresh start
where righteousness is.
Noah is the new Adam.
He's the head of humanity.
He's this giant
of faith
and obedience.
It's rather shocking
that out of the 350 years
of Noah's life,
everything that Moses
could have told us about.
What did Noah do
after the flood?
We're told one thing.
He gets drunk.
What's that about?
Scripture says
God gave wine
to gladden the heart.
It's not the wine itself.
He's lost control.
It's unfitting
of an image bearer
and Scripture also shows
it's especially unfitting
of those in authority
and he's the head
of the human race.
Noah is the new Adam.
He's a new beginning
but what we see here
is a new beginning of sin.
The Bible doesn't do
what we hear
at a lot of funerals.
It always presents
people's blemishes.
Noah gets drunk.
Abraham, cowardly,
risks his wife
to protect his own skin.
And then Hagar incident.
Moses, a murderer,
fleeing from Egypt
and then losing his,
getting into a rage,
striking the rock.
Elijah, just self-pitying,
I'm the only one left.
David with Bathsheba
and Uriah.
Peter, denying Christ.
Paul and Barnabas,
getting into a conflict.
Blemish everywhere.
All these giants of the faith,
which is just by the by.
It's encouraging in a way,
is it not?
God can graciously use
flawed people.
But it all shows us
that when a man turns up
without any blemish
whatsoever,
he stands out.
you sit up and listen.
So there's a new beginning of sin.
We need a better Noah,
a better head of the race.
The biggest focus here
is on Ham
and his response to this.
Now,
we don't have time
to go into it,
but the passage cares more
about the consequences
for future generations,
like all the societies
that come from these three guys,
more than the individuals themselves.
We might think of our actions
as individualistic,
the consequences are here and now,
but,
I don't know,
the teachers,
the psychologists,
the social workers among us,
we know,
we know intergenerational consequences,
even in our individualistic society.
So here,
he sees Noah naked
and drunk,
and then he seems
to go to his brothers
to gossip
and have a good laugh about it.
He takes a good look
and he wants to go talk about it
and have a good laugh.
It doesn't say laugh,
he just,
I'm reading into it there,
okay?
He wants to talk about it
for some reason.
It's either gossip
or slander,
something.
What's the big deal?
We might ask,
what's the big deal?
Well,
the respectful actions
of the other brothers,
they're so careful
in walking backwards,
it's almost humorous,
but they're so careful
to honour
this blemish
of their father.
And it highlights
Ham's dishonour.
He enjoys
Noah's humiliation.
Ham enjoys
his humiliation.
Which suggests
something spiritually
is not right.
And perhaps
that's why
Noah saw
in these three
a spiritual condition
that's going to
intensify
as the generations
go on.
But yes,
Noah had lost
control of himself.
I'm not excusing that.
I don't think
scripture is
excusing that.
But he's
Ham's father.
He's the head
of humanity.
He's the reason
why Ham
survived
the judgement.
And he enjoys
his humiliation.
Something's wrong there.
It made me think
how people today
enjoy
ridiculing Jesus
even though
he's got no blemish.
what's going on there?
The flood
is all about
new beginnings.
He's committed
to a world
no more evil
only peace
and blessing
but
there's a beginning
of sin
and there's a beginning
of curse again.
It's telling us
that the human heart
needs a deeper
cleansing
than water.
I think
this passage
also shows us
how patient
God is
and the rainbow
reminds us of it
how patient
the Lord is
because it's not
Shem
who's going to
reverse the curse
but it's through
his line
that we get to
Abraham
and so many
generations
until we reach
Jesus Christ.
The Lord
is patient.
We need a deeper
cleansing.
So I think
we've seen
so many reasons
why we can
not only
fear
the God
of the flood
but we
ought to love
him.
He's so pure
in his love
he just
can't stand
to look at
evil.
He's
determined
to purge
the world
of all
evil and
violence.
That is
good news.
That is
really good
news.
He's determined
he wants a
new beginning.
He wants a
new creation
where peace
and righteousness
reigns.
He's
determined
to give us
rest.
shalom
as
scripture
calls it.
He's a
God who
always remembers
his covenant
promise.
He's
patient
incredibly
patient
hanging up
his bow
but he's
more than
patient
we eventually
see that
bow aimed
at himself
on the
cross.
God
has
to
come
to
see that
God
is
looking
for a
fresh
start.
If you're
looking for a
new beginning
if you feel
like you're
just at the
bottom of
the barrel
the flood
is good
news.
The God
is all
about a
new
beginning.
He invites
you into
a new
creation.
And
brothers and
sisters
those of
us with
faith in
Jesus who
believe he's
coming again
to judge
and to
bring that
new creation
may our
faith look
as radical
as Noah.
We can't
see it.
All
that God
is his
word.
We walk
in the
footsteps
of Noah.
I want
to finish
with the
words of
2 Peter.
The
heavens
let me
start a bit
earlier.
The
Lord is
not slow
to
fulfill
his
promise
as some
count
slowness
but is
patient
toward
you
not
wishing
that
any
should
perish
but that
all
should
reach
repentance.
The
heavens
will be
set on
fire
and
dissolved
and the
heavenly
bodies
will
melt
as they
burn.
But
according
to his
promise
we are
waiting
for new
heavens
and a
new
earth
in which
righteousness
dwells.
therefore
beloved
since you
are waiting
for these
be diligent
to be found
by him
without spot
or blemish
and at
peace
and count
the patience
of our
Lord
as salvation.
May you pray
me.
Let's pray.
Father,
we praise
you for
your patience
and
thank you
for absorbing
your own
anger
in yourself.
Lord,
thank you
that
as we
look at
the cross
even though
the day
of judgment
is ahead
we can
see
that
the
judgment
has
already
been
poured
out
for
our
sins
on
your
son.
Thank
you
for
this
confidence
that
we
are
in
him
the
righteous
one
and
that
all
we've
got
to
look
forward
to
is
that
new
creation.
Father,
pray for
us
that
you
would
help
us
have
that
reference
point
in
our
lives
that
we
would
live
by
faith
seeking
the
salvation
of
others.
I pray
this
in
Jesus
name
Amen.