Sermon Central
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Noah Found Grace
Contributed by Ray Ellis on Oct 22, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: All of us are in deep debt from sin. There is no way we can pay for our debt of sin. Just as Noah received Grace from the Lord, we also can receive God’s grace and accept God forgiveness of sin and live a life of victory.
Noah Found Grace
A couple weeks ago when I was working on topics and scripture for this month I listed “Noah Found Grace” as the topic for this Sunday. Gay, my secretary, looked at the title and asked, “After Noah Found Grace” then what did he do. My first response was, “He lived happily ever after.” The fact is because He Found Grace in the Eyes of the Lord, He did live and did not die in the flood. But as you read the rest of the story it was not “happily ever after.” That part of Noah’s life is for another sermon. Today I want to focus on “God’s Grace.”
In the time of Noah people forgot God their creator. They reduced their Creator to gods made of idols stone, trees and nature. They rebelled against their creator. Verse 5, “Now the Lord observed the extent of their people’s wickedness, and he saw that all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil.”
How quickly people forget that God is Holy and God is Just. God hates evil. God cannot do anything contrary to His character. The Apostle Paul may have had the people of Noah’s time in mind when he wrote in Romans 1:28 NLT, “When they refused to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do things that should never be done.”
God commands his people to “Have no other gods before Him.” The people in Noah’s day refused to worship their Creator and instead worshipped His creation.”
Genesis 6:6-8 “So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them, it broke his heart. And the Lord said, ‘I will completely wipe out this human race that I have created. Yes, and I will destroy all the animals and birds too. I am sorry I ever made them.’ But Noah found favor with the Lord.” NLT
Genesis 6:9-10 tell us why Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was a righteous man living in a corrupt world. He walked with God and was a good example to his wife and three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. When God asked Noah to build an Ark his family pitched in and helped him build the Ark and when God told them it was time to enter the Ark his family went in with him without arguing.
When we talk about “God’s Grace” we are talking about what God does for us that we don’t really deserve. “Grace” is often defined as receiving unearned or unmerited favor. Romans 5:8, describes “God’s Grace”, “God gave His love to us in that even while we were sinners Christ died for us.”
How Far Down Does God’s grace reach?
Are there certain sins that are beyond the Grace of God? Have you ever wondered how God could ever forgive a person for all the wretched sins they committed?
This past week I read about the life of Jeffrey Dahmer. You type in his name on “Google” and you get the graphic story of his life. He was convicted of 17 murders between 1978 and 1991. His cruel and vile lifestyle was beyond what a human being should be capable of. The story of how he treated his victims is sickening.
When I read the story of Jeffrey Dahmer I had a hard time believing his conversion. While he was in the Columbia Correction Facility in Portage, Wis. He told the world that he repented of his brutal sins and was “born again.”
Months before he was murdered in the prison by another inmate he said he repented and put his faith in Jesus and was baptized. He began to read the Bible and Christian book and regularly attended chapel.
It doesn’t seem fair. For all the evil Jeffrey Dahmer did he deserved to spend an eternity being punished in the fires of hell separated from God’s love and grace.
After all isn’t God’s grace reserved for average sinners like you and me? Romans 1:26-30, makes it clear that God’s anger is shown against: “sexual sin, evil, selfishness, hatred, jealousy, murder. God you need to judge people living a life of sin. Your grace is primarily for us good righteous people.
When we begin to filter God’s grace through our personal views then we get into trouble. The Bible commands us to “Judge not so you are not judged.” When you want to hold the gavel and pronounce judgment on someone turn to Romans 2:1-4 and see what God has to say about your judging others.
From time to time when we complain that God and life aren’t fair, we need to remind ourselves that God is Fair, He is just, He is perfect in His judgments.
Jesus welcomed the repentant Thief on the cross and said, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
