[00:00:01] Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or 10:30am if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find
[email protected] Be sure to also check out our Bible Study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] I came across this true story last week and part of the reason I wanted to share it was because the impact it had on me. It's one of those that when you hear it, the thought of what happened there can't really leave you. And so I want to share it with you for two reasons. Number one, whenever you hear something like you're about to hear, it hits on a whole nother level because you also think, man, somebody had to live that. The other reason why I want to share it with you is to me, it really depicts something that we all are a part of and it's our response to the mission of God.
[00:01:11] Now, as you think about that for just a second, the story is this. This man was getting off from the early morning shift at work around 3am and he was driving the same route he drove every single day. And he got on the bridge he gets on every single morning. But then all of a sudden he began to feel the earthquake beneath him. Unfortunately, this is something that tends to happen often in California. And so as the earth is quaking, the bridge that he's on all of a sudden is not such a good idea anymore. And then he notices that right in front of him some tail lights disappear, that bridge broke apart and one car goes in. Then he noticed a second pair of tail lights go down. And so he pulls over as quick as he can and it makes that emergency stop. But then he also notices two more cars coming in that direction. And so he starts waving his arms back and forth. And as he tells it, one car went by him, probably going 70 miles per hour again, tail lights going off into the water. He then decides to make the decision to take his shirt off and wave it in the air, hoping that that they will notice and stop. And again, about 70 miles per hour passes right by him. Tail lights go off into the water.
[00:02:27] And so then he notices off in the distance that there's actually a bus. And the way he put it, he said at that shift and where he was, usually there was a lot of nurses and doctors that would get on those buses to get to where they were. And so he then said, I made a decision that if this bus goes off of that bridge into the water, I'm going with it.
[00:02:48] So what he did, he stood in the middle of that bridge, and he's waving his arms back and forth, not moving as that bus is heading in his direction.
[00:02:57] And so the bus starts to honk. The honks become more and more the closer they get to that man.
[00:03:04] And so the bus eventually makes an emergency stop and turns. The bus driver gets out and he starts chewing out the guy that's standing in the middle of the road thinking, you know, what in the world are you doing? What were you thinking? And then that man that was waving his arms back and forth, he then said, hey, come here, I want to show you something. And showed how the bridge was broken and where other cards had gone off of it. And so that man that was driving that bus then moved the bus to the side, and then two more cars joined him and blocked off that entire entrance. So no more cars would have to do that.
[00:03:40] When I tell you that story, of course, it's hard to put yourself into that person's shoes, to really think in a fight or flight moment what you would do and how you would respond.
[00:03:52] But to the best of our ability, let's try for just a second.
[00:03:56] If you were in that man's shoes and you were the first person on scene, what would you do?
[00:04:05] And maybe some of you might think, well, you know, I'll do what sometimes if we're not careful, we kind of do with our walk with God. Well, what I'll do is this.
[00:04:14] I'll try to lead by example.
[00:04:17] And so I'll just stand off to the side in hopes that other people will see me also standing off to the side and they'll join me and not go off that bridge.
[00:04:30] Or maybe you would be like that guy, doing whatever it takes.
[00:04:35] Again, it's hard to know what we would do in that moment. But here's what I do know about that man. What made him make that decision. Something within him was just different.
[00:04:44] To say, I'm going to do whatever it takes to not just save these people's lives, but other people's lives too. See, yeah, he saved the lives of people that were in those other cars and those buses, but he also impacted lives that he hadn't even met yet.
[00:05:01] Today we're going to look at a very familiar narrative of a man in the Bible named Noah.
[00:05:07] And I want to go ahead and tell you, I told this to the early crowd. This was not the plan to preach on this at all. I had a whole different lesson done, but evidently God didn't want me to do it. But also, at the beginning of a new year, you know, you go through Genesis and I get to Genesis, and then I start to really think about what this man Noah did.
[00:05:29] And it's one thing to talk about it, because we kind of paint it almost like it's a fairytale type narrative, but yet a man lived this.
[00:05:39] And when you really put yourself in his shoes and see how he responded to this mission, it's jaw dropping to think about what this man said. Hey, I'm willing to go all in on something I may not can fully see, understand, or even have experienced.
[00:05:58] And so I want to start today by asking you this question. We're going to come back to this question in just a second.
[00:06:06] Would you describe yourself as being all in on the mission of God in your life?
[00:06:15] And as you answer that question for yourself, maybe you're like me. The term and phrase all in has kind of changed over the years. Y'all might remember when in college football, they were doing a lot of conference realignment, that teams that were normally not in the SEC or joining the sec, same thing with the Big Ten. Well, then all of a sudden, Notre Dame said, hey, we're gonna do the same thing. We just want to announce that we are going all in on the acc.
[00:06:41] The Atlantic Coast Conference. People are like, oh, that's awesome. That's great. And then they said, yeah, we're going all in. We're all in on the acc except for football.
[00:06:50] I'm like, well, that's the thing you're good at. Like, that's where you bring the revenue, Right? And so maybe our definition of all in is a little bit different. It's kind of like that description I've hear. Like, if you had bacon and eggs this morning, the chicken and the pig were both involved in your breakfast. But one of them made a contribution. One was all in. Okay, There's a difference in making some slight adjustments. There's a difference in just making a contribution and being all in.
[00:07:24] But here's what I want us to see when we look at Noah's life and we think about that man on the bridge when we make that choice and what all comes with it, to be all in on the mission of God. Yes, it blesses you, but it blesses your families, future people you haven't even met yet, when we decide to be all in. So I want to give us a little bit of context.
[00:07:49] So this kind of maybe means a little bit more. Because a lot of us, maybe you're like me, had a lot of questions about the whole God flooding the earth thing. It says this in the text. The Lord saw the wickedness of man, and that was great in the earth. And every intention of the thoughts was only evil continually. And so the Lord regretted that he made man on the earth, and it grieved him from his heart.
[00:08:09] So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I've created from the face of the land. Man and animals, creeping things, birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. Maybe you're like me. Growing up, I used to think, why in the world would a loving God do something like that?
[00:08:25] But yet, if you look in the first underlined word, it gives us a little bit of context. That word wickedness comes from the Hebrew word mashit. And that word is a really important word because it really describes what was happening on the world in the earth was destruction. In fact, sometimes it's just translated destroyers. And so God, what he was doing, he would cease to be a good God, just like we would cease to be God good parents if we saw our kids in trouble and didn't do anything. What God saw, when it says destroyers, what was happening was God was trying to destroy the destroyers.
[00:09:02] We kind of know this. If you've ever gone through cancer treatments or you have a family member that's gone through cancer treatments, they have something in their bodies that's hurting their bodies that's killing them. But then we put them through radiation or chemo. And what the goal of that is, right, is to destroy what's destroying.
[00:09:21] That's what God is doing here. He's trying to stop this cycle of destruction. And you get a little glimpse of his heart with that word, grieved. Because that's the same word that is used in Isaiah and the prophet Hosea to talk about a husband, how he feels when his wife leaves him, or how a wife feels when the husband runs away, he's saying that, my heart is so grieved that you've left me. And the reason is you're involved in all this destruction that's destroying other things. So I can't just sit by and do nothing. And so in the middle of all of this, we Then hear this phrase where it says in the very next verse, but Noah found grace or favor in the eyes of the Lord.
[00:10:06] And why in the world did Noah find grace and favor in the eyes of the Lord? It says this because he was a righteous man. He was blameless in his generation. And Noah walked with God. See, there's a important connection between our obedience to God and our walk with God. And this is a silly example, but maybe you've seen in big crowds, if it's been at like, Six Flags or Disney or something like that, those parents that put on their kids, like, those little strap things that I guess it's a leash, you know, I'm talking about, like, if the kid is like one of those that just has a tendency to leave and they're running like. Like it'll bring them back. You know what I'm talking about? And I used to. I'm not judging by the way. I used to, like, judge parents more. Then I became a parent. Now I'm not a good parent anymore. I was much better before I had kids.
[00:10:51] And so you see that on them. But then you notice, like, when they get 15 and 16 years old, they're no longer, like, using that harness. Why?
[00:11:02] Well, because they're sensitive to the voice of their parents. And in the same way, like with our own children, we don't want them to just be responsive to the restraint.
[00:11:13] We want them to be responsive to the voice.
[00:11:16] Right?
[00:11:18] And that's what's happened here with Noah. He is so responsive to the voice of God, and especially in two ways. Number one, whenever God tells him to do something, man, he doesn't hesitate. In fact, in these two chapters, three times it says, and Noah did all the Lord commanded. And Noah did all the Lord commanded. And Noah did all the Lord commanded. When God said, hey, build an ark, he didn't say why. When he said, put a window there, he didn't say, I would like it over here. When God said, I want there to be lions on there, he said, could we not do the lions? Or if we do just one instead of two so they don't multiply. Like, he didn't say any of that. Never hesitated. But also, think about this. He said yes to things that he had no clue about. God said, hey, build this big, big boat that's gonna give, you know, take 100 plus years of your life. And the reason you're doing this is because of a flood. A what? Yeah, a flood. He's gonna come from here and come from there, and he's gonna Flood the earth, okay? And also, if you look at Genesis 7 in verse 10, it says this, that even after he finished this whole project, he's on there with all the animals, y'all. It didn't rain for seven days.
[00:12:23] So imagine that just for a second, you know, he's like, I built this.
[00:12:28] You know, one day, two days, three days, four. You know, those days keep coming and going. And then you probably have family members like, hey, Lord, in the world, like we've been, we're with these animals and we're with each other. This is not the idea of a vacation, right? But yet that's the situation they're in. He didn't hesitate. And even when it didn't make sense, he obeyed.
[00:12:48] But see, that's where usually things happen in our life is simple. Acts of obedience are what usually lead to some of the greatest results and greatest moves of faith in our life.
[00:13:00] I want to ask you a question right now that I want to see a show of hands later. So prepare yourself to raise your hands. Okay, so here's the question for those of us in this room. How many of us, we would say maybe ourselves, our parents, our grandparents, or great grandparents did not grow up in the church. I want you to think on that for just a second in this room. Parents, you, grandparents, great grandparents did not grow up in the church. But you're here. All right, I want you to hold on to that for just a second.
[00:13:33] And as you think about that man on the bridge, and you think about Noah, the decision that he chooses to make, that is a life altering one. It blesses him, it blesses his family, but guys, it also blesses people that he had not even met yet.
[00:13:48] See, what I want us to do this morning is I want us to see Noah's mission in light of our own. And I want us to see that the exact thing that God had called Noah to is exactly what our whole calling is about. And it's framed in this number one. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. There was nothing so special about Noah. It wasn't that Noah was perfect, it was what he found in him. Like Noah is just responding to who God is. The second thing is this. Think about how he chose to be a channel of salvation to other people. The point of Noah receiving grace was not for Noah to keep the grace to himself. The point of the grace was to disperse it, to let other people experience the same thing. But also think about this. Think about how much he had to rearrange his life because of this mission. Y'all, when you hear that the earth is gonna be flooded and everyone and everything is gonna be destroyed with it if you don't get on the boat. There is no such thing after that moment as life as normal, you don't see yourself the same. You don't see other people the same. When the guy that you always see walking by, when you were working on your house, he was working on his, you're trying to let him know what's going on, and you see him different. I mean, think about this. Like, he didn't have a mortgage on his house. He had built his own home.
[00:15:08] And so now he knows all that I built, all that I work for is going to be destroyed. Why? Because of this mission. Think about his response to that grace.
[00:15:18] And we're going to come back to this. Also think about his grateful heart. Because the moment he does get off that ark, he and the animals, after the world has been wiped away with all the water and the sin that had been wiped away with it. It says that under his own initiative, Noah made a sacrifice. God didn't tell him to. God didn't make him. He didn't twist his arm. He did it in response to that grace.
[00:15:43] So what does this have to do with you and I? Well, the first thing is this. I want us to all frame this in the mission that God has for us and our involvement in it from the very place it began with Noah. And that's the grace of God. I mean, you just read what we just read, and it's amazing. God said that he, you know, saw the hearts of man. It was only evil continuously. Like, that's God really saying it was that bad. And y'all, we have it bad. But you read that, we realize, man, that was real bad. Like, they were hurting each other, they were destroying each other. And God even regretted that he made man. Then it said this. But grace.
[00:16:18] So what made the difference here?
[00:16:20] Grace made the difference. It's kind of like if you've read the Book of Judges, you'll notice in the Book of Judges how every chapter heading says, and the people did evil again in the sight of the Lord. And the people did evil again in the sight of the Lord. But you know what you notice in every single one of those is that right after it says that, like, you don't hear the people saying, God, we're so sorry.
[00:16:41] God, we repent.
[00:16:43] Yet God gives them grace anyway.
[00:16:47] How many times in your life has God given you grace and you didn't even ask for it?
[00:16:55] And in that is one of the most humbling, incredible, beautiful truths in the Bible. And it's this, that God loves you. And he loves me. Just because, like, Deuteronomy 7 says that God looks down. He's not like, man, have you seen that guy? Man, have you seen her? Like, he just loves us because that's who he is. And for all of us that have been Christians at different lengths of time, we recognize this truth in our life that more often than not, actually, let's say this, every time, God's grip on us way tighter than our grip on him.
[00:17:33] And because of that truth, y'all, I am so, so grateful.
[00:17:38] But the second thing is this, that we are also being called to be channels of salvation to other people, just like Noah. That when Noah makes this decision, he's not just trying to keep grace for himself. The whole point is to try to help other people and to save future people that he had not even met yet. See, this is where it shows up in our life. You know, when Jesus was about to ascend, the two last things that he said were these. He said, as you go, I want you to go into all the world. I want you to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And I will be with you. And then he said this. I want you to start in Jerusalem, then to Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Oh, and don't worry, I'm gonna give you the comfort of the Holy Spirit to walk with you as you take this on.
[00:18:24] See, as you look through Scripture, these are the three areas that we are to channel the very grace that we've been given our families. Number one, our first and foremost priority is our family. Not our only, but our first and foremost.
[00:18:40] The greatest leadership that we will ever have outside of leading ourselves is leading our families, discipling our families, discipling our children.
[00:18:53] The second one is this, our neighbors.
[00:18:57] You know, think about wherever God put you in your house, where God put us here on Hughes Road. Jeremiah 29 says that the reason he planted us in all of those places is the welfare that we want to experience as a direct result to our connection to those that are around us. He planted us here. Think about the faith of the shepherds that set like this vision for this place.
[00:19:22] I love when we have new people, place, membership. And Brandon gets to share the history of how these two elders from two different congregations came together and had the vision to do something at that time where everybody else, you kind of look at the time, a lot of people were breaking apart in churches. They were, you know, separating, yet they decide to unite. And y'all have seen Hughes Road, like in the past, like those pictures, right? There was nothing on this road.
[00:19:51] Yet they had the vision to build something here.
[00:19:54] And now think about the amazing gift God gave us of being sandwiched right now between two public schools on one of the busiest roads in Madison, where we can make a VBS display that you can see from space. Okay, y'all think about the vision of that, but the blessing of where we are located.
[00:20:18] And as you think about that, what I want us to understand is there's a connection between our families and our neighbors.
[00:20:25] In fact, some of you know that I spent six years in college ministry, and when you're in college ministry, the one thing you hear, and you hear it all the time in our college students have probably heard it before. The main group of people that, you know, we talk about that falls away from the church is between 18 to 25.
[00:20:40] In fact, the latest stat I looked at last week said 78% of those that fall away are falling away between 18 and 25, walking away from faith. So my question is always, why?
[00:20:51] What is it? And the results might kind of surprise you. Barna research in the Kinnaman group, they did a top 10, you know what? Three of the things involved a lack of reaching out to the neighbor. It says there was more of an inward focused mentality and no outwardly focused ministries and no evangelism education. Like that was the mindset that. Why? Why would that? Because I think the reason is, is we are made in the image of the one that sees the unseen. We are made in the image of the one that's looking out for the vulnerable, the ones that are around. Right? That's why he said, I want you to start in Jerusalem. Where were they at Jerusalem. He said, start in Jerusalem, then Judea, then the uttermost parts of the earth.
[00:21:39] Now, I asked you this question a few minutes ago. How many of you didn't grow up in the church? Your parents didn't, or your grandparents or maybe great grandparents, if that fits you. Raise your hand. I'm going to raise two because. All right, I know there's more people out. Raise your hand, you, parents, grandparents, great grandparents. Look around for just a second. Keep your hands up.
[00:22:02] All right, Put your hands down.
[00:22:04] Think about the people, what this room would not look like if somebody didn't see the value of that neighbor, and why you are where you are right now.
[00:22:20] Again, just like that man on the bridge, just like Noah, when we make that very radical decision to do something, it doesn't just bless us. It blesses people, y'all, that we haven't even met yet. Your decision and to be faithful and to be obedient to that call is gonna bless you. Your family, your kids, your grandkids, your great grandkids, family you haven't even met yet. But then there's the nations.
[00:22:44] You know, I loved a few weeks ago how Bob and Cam Walker, both, in their giving talk, talked about the ministries that are going on that we don't see and think about a lot. And so I text Barry Smith and I said, hey, I heard a really high number for the amount of baptisms that have happened through World Mission Africa.
[00:23:07] I said, can you clarify that? I said, I heard that it was 6,000 last year. Put on Christ in Africa through World Mission Africa that we support. And he said, no, that's not correct. It was 6061.
[00:23:21] Think about that for just a second. 6061 people. But also think of the way that even the nations and mission have blessed you. I know we have young people here that are now in ministry. I know for me, like, one of the things that made me even want to go into ministry in the first place was mission work.
[00:23:40] And so how we see these in the right way is how we really see what we're all a part of in the right way. We're either going to see church like a cruise ship, where it's like, well, the church serves me, provides for me, and serves me and meets my needs, and that's the only way we view it, or we see the church kind of like a battleship.
[00:23:58] If you were here with us last week, Brandon did an awesome job of talking about, in the body of Christ, you never take sides. The only side you take is the side of unity. And we don't fight with each other. The only fight that happens is fighting for unity.
[00:24:14] That's the only fight. That's the only side. And just like in counseling, counselors are taught to never take sides in the marriage, but to take the side of the marriage. We're taking the side of the marriage, the body of Christ, because of what we believe it can do. And so what we were called to be is not a cruise ship, not a battleship, but to be an aircraft carrier, which is, of course, the place where you load supplies, you fuel up, and then you go. One guy said it like this. He said, anything God is involved in, he's a spiritual tornado. He Brings you in with the idea of spewing you out. Like, it's the idea, hey, I bring you in to send you. Like, that's the whole premise and the process. But then there comes to this one, and this is the hardest one.
[00:24:59] Like Noah, we have to radically rearrange our priorities.
[00:25:04] Everything Noah did was not really safe. It was not a safe endeavor. But yet I think we can learn a lot from this risk taker.
[00:25:15] You know, I do think we have to be careful, because I've seen myself do this, that I'm going to dictate to God what I'll allow and kind of make my obedience conditional. It might sound like this, all right, when I get to this point in my life, then I will.
[00:25:32] Or when we get this goal accomplished, well, then I will. Or, man, I'll do this. I just got to see this. But yet you look in faith's hall of fame and look at those examples of faith. It was not a conditional obedience, it was a faithful obedience. So what does this look like for us? Well, in order for us to radically renew and reorient our priorities, number one, we have to understand that salvation and commission are one and the same. I think sometimes we've divided these into two groups, and here's what I mean by that. Sometimes we'll say, all right, this young person put on Christ in baptism at the age of 16. Now, when they get to. When they get to 21, 22, what we're going to need, they should be mature enough to go reach people, to go share the gospel at their schools. That is not a biblical picture. Salvation and commission are one and the same. Moses, God saved him in that situation, in that desert and commissioned him. At the exact same time God showed up in the form of Jesus to Peter on a boat, saved his life and commissioned him. At the exact same time, God showed up to Paul, formerly Saul, on the road to Damascus, saved his life and commissioned him. We are saved and commissioned people.
[00:26:48] That's the way we have to see it. There's not salvation with commission later. They're one and the same.
[00:26:53] But here's this next one. The reason we have blessings is to bless other people. The reason God rescued your great grandma, your granddad, you, whoever it was along the line is so you could go out and I could go out and relate to people. The reason we were saved. And I don't know if y'all feel like I do, sometimes I wanna, like, pinch myself and I ask God, why me?
[00:27:15] Like, why did I get into this situation and how, like Do I know I don't deserve this blessing? Why me and how grace?
[00:27:28] It wasn't because he was like man, that Andrew guy. It was because of grace.
[00:27:33] See, what we see is there's always a connection between grace given in generosity. There's always grace given in sacrifice. The two, just like salvation and commission, are one and the same. And then there's this one.
[00:27:47] In order to radically reorient our lives, we have to start taking our hands off of everything, as was mentioned this morning, that's not ours anyway.
[00:27:59] In fact, in the Hebrew culture, one of the verses that they took literally, that we kind of take figuratively, and was actually meant to be understood figuratively, not literally. I mean, not figuratively. And that's Ecclesiastes 4. 6. You might be familiar with it where it says this better is 1 handful than 2 handfuls in striving and chasing after wind. The idea is this, that if your hands are full and you've got your hands on all your things, all your stuff, the reality is you look like a person that's chasing wind. I thought for the sake of illustration, we could have got Brandon this morning to chase wind and you could really get the example. But if you. If you watch somebody do that, you'd think, what are they doing? Like, that makes no sense. What are they chasing after?
[00:28:44] And that's the point. Nothing.
[00:28:47] 2 handful living is chasing after nothing. And so that's when he says, better is one handful. The idea was a literal sense that it's not wrong to have things, but it's the idea that when you receive something, you have the other open hand to. To distribute. Does that make sense? It's like God's blessed me and so now I'm using this hand to help and to serve that. You can't reach down and pick somebody up if both hands are holding things. And you can't serve an area and be generous in an area if both hands are on things. Right? That's why he said, you look like you're chasing wind, but you're really chasing something if one of those hands is opened.
[00:29:25] You know, when you think about the church, that the means to which God used to reach mankind, the vehicle was the church. It's kind of like when God went to Noah. God said, hey, there's going to be a flood. And Noah said, well, what am I going to do about it? He goes, figure it out.
[00:29:43] Well, no, he didn't do that. He gave him a very specific plan, same thing for the church. He said, I'm going to reach Mankind. And you're not going to be by yourself. I'm going to give you a gift of the Holy Spirit. And how we're going to do it is through the church. Now you might think, well, you said I can't give through other things. No, I'm saying that the vehicle of generosity throughout the New Testament was through the church for God to get the glory and for the kingdom to expand. Read this and this will just blow your mind. It does to me all the time. It says this. The full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul. No one said that the things that they had belonged to him or was his own. Then look what it says next. But they had everything in common. Do y'all think there is a link between commonality, unity and generosity?
[00:30:32] Because we all really enjoy being around people that are more generous people, right?
[00:30:37] Because they had that one handful mindset. There was this commonality. But then notice what it goes on to say. Remember I told you our motivation for our generosity is always what?
[00:30:48] Grace.
[00:30:50] There was great grace upon them all, but there wasn't even needy person among them.
[00:30:57] I know for me, when I was growing up, and maybe some of you can relate to me in this. I remember it was like once a year, either there's a guy named BP Black or someone would come to our congregation growing up and would talk about giving and generosity. And so when I was younger, I always did the okay, my parents need to hear this. I don't have to hear this. So I'm gonna check out right now and what I'm gonna do is this will be a good time to play tic tac toe with my buddy in the youth group section. So that's usually what I did. Alright? Then I got older and I started to have income of my own. And this is just me. I'm not saying everybody was this way. I got a little defensive. I was like, well, the only reason they're talking about this and is because, you know, they need my money or they're trying, you know, like that was my mindset. So for me, where I was at, it was more of a pride issue and a trust issue.
[00:31:46] And I'll go ahead and tell you, I think what mine was framed in, I didn't frame it in the right way from the beginning.
[00:31:52] I didn't see it in light of grace, I didn't see it in light of mission.
[00:31:58] I saw it in light of myself.
[00:32:03] But I was getting tired, I guess, of chasing wind.
[00:32:07] And I want us to think about, not only did they Radically reorient everything.
[00:32:13] But think about this example. You think about First Corinthians 16. It says, now, concerning the collection of the saints, as I directed the churches in Galatia, you're supposed to do on the first day of every week. But notice what he says here. This is how they had to radically reorient.
[00:32:28] They put something aside and stored it up in the Greek. The idea of that was a purposeful planning. It's almost like you're sitting at a business meeting, you know, all right, what are we going to do? How can we be a part of the solution?
[00:32:41] It was a very purposeful thing. And look at the reason why he said, you got to plan it. You got to radically reorient is because there will be no collecting when I come. Do you see what he's saying? I can't get there, guys, and be like, come on, I need your help. Like, there's something big we can do.
[00:32:58] He's like, we gotta already have that going because there is a mission out in front of us. There is so much I can't get there. And we focus on collecting. I gotta get there. And we gotta get focused on commissioning.
[00:33:09] And so that was the mindset. I remember when we got married, when Donnie gave us our premarital counseling, like, financial form where you do your budgeting. And that's when it kind of hit me that I had things backwards for me.
[00:33:27] On the very top, he said, I first want you to figure out what you, as a couple, are gonna give and then fill out the rest. And I was like, so usually what we do, whatever was left, then that's what, you know, Getting that mindset was difficult.
[00:33:41] But once I started framing it in grace, and when we frame it in grace and mission, things begin to change. See, I told you earlier we were gonna come back to this text.
[00:33:50] And so Noah is on the boat with his family. The waters have now receded. And this is what it says in verse 18.
[00:34:00] So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons wives with him.
[00:34:05] Every beast, every creeping thing, every bird, everything that moves on the earth went out by families from the ark. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of the offerings of every clean bird. Burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled the aroma, and it pleased the Lord. God did not ask him to make that altar. God did not ask him to make that sacrifice.
[00:34:32] It was generated out of his own initiative. It was a response to grace.
[00:34:41] And I think about that. For me, yes, I see that text I give here on the first day of the week. But I would dare to say that our Lord, our shepherds here, yes, they want us to give here. But I'm telling you, the main goal is not just to give here, but the goal is to be a generous person, to create, and to have a generous heart.
[00:35:04] Now, we don't do this in order to just get and receive. But yet I can't ignore the fact that the Bible says, hey, God said, listen, test me in this, and I'm gonna make it overflow for you. So much so that there's gonna be so much you get back pressed down, overflowing. It was the picture of a servant going out into the field that they would put more of the produce that was left and they could even stand in the basket to get more in. He said, that's how I operate. I'm an overflow type God. That's where I operate.
[00:35:33] But I also want you to think, though, with that truth then. And there's some days you are generous, but then there's other days you need it.
[00:35:42] And I'll give you this example as we close.
[00:35:45] I told you guys about two years ago about how my dad was working at Faulkner, and they said, hey, we're not going to be able to pay you guys for a few weeks. This is everybody at Faulkner and just hanging there with us. Two weeks turned into a month, a month turned into a month and a half, and a month and a half turned into two months, no pay. He's got two kids and a wife and a mortgage.
[00:36:09] And so during that time, I'll never forget, dad gets on, what, Ware's Ferry Road in Montgomery and gets a lawnmower out and just going door to door, knocking, hey, can I cut your grass? I'll take anything. Give me a dollar. I'll take a dollar.
[00:36:23] I remember going along with him, we were picking up sticks in random people's yards. Even if they would just give us, you know, 50 Cent, whatever it would be. I remember back when they had the Wendy's chili bar, which, man, something needs to make a return. It's that that thing was awesome. But we would go and get, like, a large chili and we would split it and just eat off of the oyster crackers and the other sides that were on that bar.
[00:36:51] I remember, you know, reaching our hands down into the couch and trying to get enough money to, you know, go get some green beans or whatever it was.
[00:37:01] And so you have that as, like a core memory in your mind as a kid.
[00:37:05] But then the core memory that seemed to even trump it was on a Sunday morning, sitting with our family, the, you know, seeing the collection plate pass by. And then all of a sudden, my dad puts money, and I'm like, wait, wait a second. Why would you. Like, what was all the digging in the, you know, couch? You know, that's a very vulnerable experience. You know, what was the whole, like, going up and down the road, you know, asking people if we can cut a front yard and a backyard for $5, but yet you're doing that. So I asked him, I said, like, why would we do that now? And his response, you know, knowing our situation, he said, well, no, that's why we do it again. At that time, I didn't understand, and I'm still trying to fully understand, but I want to fast forward with you about, I don't know, 15, 16 years shared with you before, in 2004, when dad got cancer, the original diagnosis was six months to a year to live. And when it was, what happened was the elders and some of the friends there of them at University Church did not like that diagnosis. And so they said, dennis, we're going to try to get you out to MD Anderson in Houston to let them see if they can give us a second opinion. He said, well, that sounds great, but we already have medical bills from UAB that we can't afford right now. And then I would have to add something that insurance is not going to cover and like, oh, no, we got you.
[00:38:31] And I'll never forget coming home. This was In January of 2005, coming home and seeing the bill and all the numbers that were in that bill, knowing we didn't have that money yet. The church at university covered that bill for my parents, because there's some days you are generous, but then there's other days that you receive it.
[00:39:01] You know, I told you earlier that when we respond out of grace and with a grateful heart, it doesn't just bless us, it blesses our families.
[00:39:11] It blesses the neighbors that God has planted us by, and it blesses the nations.
[00:39:19] I loved how Noah responded out of his own initiative. It wasn't God commanding him. He just saw what he saw. He experienced what he experienced.
[00:39:30] So I asked you at the very beginning, would you describe in your life that you are all in on the mission of God in your life?
[00:39:38] So I want to follow up with this question. Let's get a little more specific.
[00:39:42] What would you say in your life that you could be more all in on?
[00:39:49] Maybe you look at your life, you're like I don't have any margin right now because I got to say yes to everything. So maybe you got to create some margin in your schedule.
[00:39:57] Maybe for some of you it is to be more generous or just to give regularly. Maybe for some of you it's something has been on your heart to want to start, but it's a little bit of a risk. It's not something necessarily safe. Maybe today you learned from this risk taker, Noah.
[00:40:16] Maybe for some of you, you've had on your heart to want to foster, and that's something you've always wanted to be involved in. Maybe to research that and to look into that. Maybe it's to get involved more in the church. I don't know what it is, but I want you to fill in that blank.
[00:40:33] And I want you to understand too though, that whatever you put in that blanket blesses you, your family, neighbors and the nations.
[00:40:43] You know, when you read this narrative, it doesn't end well. Of course. You hear that God wiped away the sin off the earth and you're like, oh yeah, you know, that's good.
[00:40:56] But yet you fast forward like a chapter later. Even after the sacrifice, it kind of turns out to be like a Jerry Springer episode. And so it doesn't necessarily end well. And so the reason is, is it's pointing forward.
[00:41:09] Yes, it gives us an example of how God uses water to cleanse. It's not nothing special about the water, but it's what God does in our obedience to that.
[00:41:21] So maybe you've not made that decision to put on Christ in baptism. What God can do through that water is to cleanse you and to add you to his forever family.
[00:41:31] But also the ark points forward to Jesus Christ. Jesus is the ark.
[00:41:36] He's the one where we find rest. He's the one that we can be with and around for seven days when other things don't seem to make sense.
[00:41:45] So maybe you're here today and you've never given your life to him in baptism. Maybe you're here today and you've maybe separated your salvation from your commission.
[00:41:55] Maybe for some of you, you haven't seen the blessings God has given you like Noah, in light of grace and in light of his mercy. So my encouragement is wherever you find yourself, to know you can come forward this morning and pray. We had a sweet lady this morning that came forward at the early service. We had the blessing to get to pray for her. We also have our shepherds every single Sunday that stand at the exits. They can pray for you there too. So whatever you need please come now While we stand and we sing this song.
