Producing Good Fruit from Your DODs

We had a wonderful men's conference, and I just want to thank you all for praying. I think we had over 180 guys there from all over the place as far as Egypt. Right? Actually we had 3 Egyptians there.

It was really neat and I have a young man who's going to Egypt. So we praise God for that, and the Lord is good. As you all know, Milton doesn't need much of an invitation or introduction in this church. He's been here a number of times and we have just so appreciated his ministry.

For those who don't know him, he's pastor of Cornerstone Bible Fellowship. Close enough in Riverside, California. I never get that right, and has been there for 24 years, and I appreciate that faithfulness to that church and he has spoken at I think 4 of our conferences, was here for our dedication of the ministry center, and he really is a part of this church. He lives in California.

We'll forgive him for that, but he really is a big part of this church and a dear brother, so let's just hear what he's going to give us from the word with open hearts this morning as the Lord spoke to all of us through this weekend, brother. Yes. Well, good morning. It's great to be with you all again.

That's right. So I've been here 5 times. And every time, I think on one or two of the occasions my wife was able to be with us, but it's always a wonderful thrill to be here. And to, like this past weekend to marinate in the early verses of Romans chapter 8 and cherish the truths that are declared there for our benefit and for our edification, and then also to interact with the men and Be edified and encouraged by each other's faith, also being able to walk alongside of Ed.

And benefit from his fellowship as well. I hope you understand how blessed you are to be here. and that you give thanks to the Lord for the blessing that you have. And being here.

And a part of this ministry, our church in California has learned much from you and from what God is doing here. And so it's just good for me. My heart is already full, and I still have another day to go just being here. Ed's going to take me shooting tomorrow, so I have never fired a firearm before, so he's going to make a man out of me tomorrow.

But I'll be flying back tomorrow afternoon, but I know that my heart will be even more full from our time here. let me have you, well, you're already in, in Genesis 9. I wanna, talk to you from, the verses that, that were read. A few minutes ago, and, and just to give you some perspective on this at our church out in California, we are, doing a series to the Book of Genesis and last Sunday, we came to the passage that was read.

To you a few minutes ago and last Sunday as a part of our series Through Genesis, I preached on this passage. And in the middle of the sermon, we had a power surge and it blew some of our equipment and shut everything down and so I had no PA system for about 5 minutes, so I had to speak loud enough for 500 people for about 5 minutes until everything cycled back on and we were able to get going again, but because of that, we have no audio. Of last Sunday's message that's on our church's website.

So I asked Ed if it would be OK if I just re-preach the sermon from last Sunday to you and hopefully there will be no power surges or outages and you'll be able to record it, put it on your website, and then our church will link to yours.

So, but I don't want to do that without your permission. So all in favor of me preaching this passage, say aye. any oppose? Say nay.

Yeah You can always count on him. Yeah. Well, the ayes have it, and I'm grateful. Because I had no Plan B for this morning.

as I was preparing this message, a couple of weeks ago in preparation for, preaching it last Sunday, I found myself thinking, A lot about mine and my wife's. Her name is Donna. our wedding ceremony almost 28 years ago and, because it ties to some themes that I see in this passage, but thinking about our wedding, in fact, first of all, you guys wanna see a couple of pictures from our wedding? OK.

Here's, my beautiful bride. and she is more beautiful today. This is Donna, and then you probably want to see a picture of the two of us together, so here's one. This is, this, this is her hugging me after the marriage license was signed.

and then, here's the two of us looking at our wedding rings. But anyway, you can, you can take those down now. but on that occasion, December 19th, almost 28 years ago, Donna and I stood in front of about 225 people and we made some promises to each other, and those promises composed the covenant. Of marriage that we were making with each other.

We both faced our pastor and we said I do to a series of questions that he was asking us, and then we both turned and faced each other and held each other by the hands, and we made promises directly to each other. These promises were unconditional. And they were lifelong promises, and through all the ups and downs in the years since, and there have been ups and there have been downs, Donna and I have been relating to one another in a covenant relationship on the basis of those promises that we made.

During that ceremony, Donna and I gave to each other a sign of our covenant.

The sign was the ring that we put on each other's finger. Nowadays when I officiate a wedding as the couple is putting the ring on the other person's finger, I have them repeat after me these words, I give you this ring as a token of my faithfulness to you promised before God. On this day, that's what a ring is. It is a token of promises made to this day, when Donna and I look at the ring on my finger, we are reminded of the promises that she made to me, and when we look at the ring on her finger, we are reminded of the promises that I made to her.

When anyone looks at either of our rings, they can know that Donna and I are in a covenant relationship. With one another. Marriage as an institution, as many of, was created by God, and being created by God, it's his intellectual property. He gets to define it.

He's the only one whose definition of marriage matters, but he created the institution of marriage to portray the relationship between Jesus Christ and the church, and related to that, marriage is also an institution. In which we get to reflect the image of God. The image of a covenant making and covenant keeping God. God is a covenant God who prizes relationships that are grounded in covenants, and marriage is the ultimate relationship.

Earthly relationship in which we reflect this aspect of God's covenant image. The theme of divine covenants is heavy in the scripture. In the New Testament, God makes a new covenant with his people, and we are ushered into the blessings of those, of that covenant. In the Old Testament, God establishes a covenant with David.

Prior to then, he establishes a covenant with Israel called the Mosaic Covenant, and prior to that, he enters into a covenant with Abraham, and prior to that, he makes a covenant with Noah and his sons, and that's the covenant that we find in our passage today. What we have here in our passage today is at the very least we can say it's the first explicit covenant that we find in scripture. In fact, we literally see an explosion of the word covenant in verses 9 through 17. In verse 9, he says, my covenant, verse 11, my covenant, verse 12, the covenant, verse 13, a covenant, verse 15, my covenant, verse 16, everlasting covenant, and verse 17, the covenant.

And these seven mentions of the word covenant are in addition to God's use of the word covenant back in Genesis 6:18 before the flood, when God promised Noah. That he will establish. His covenant with Noah. Which means that his making of the covenant with Noah right now is actually a fulfillment.

Of his promise that he would Establish his covenant with Noah. So we'll look at this covenant today, but before we get into the text, let me just give you two preliminary observations that I think are important and that I think would be a blessing. first of all, keep in mind that this covenant that God is making with Noah here, is in response to sacrifice. It's in response to the sacrifices that Noah offered to the Lord in Genesis chapter 8, verse 20.

After Noah, according to Genesis 8:20, after Noah had come out of the ark, his first act was to take at least one of every clean animal and to offer that up in a massive sacrifice to the Lord. And we learn in Genesis 8:20-21 how the aroma of that offering ascended up to God and it was a soothing aroma. That word soothing is a play on the name Noah. It was a Noaic aroma, a restful aroma to the Lord.

And in verse 21, the text says the Lord smelled the soothing aroma, and the Lord said. Connect that together. The Lord smelled, and the Lord said. And thus he began to speak.

God, in response to the sacrifice, he began to speak to his own heart, literally, and promised himself that he would never send another global flood again. And now in our passage today, God is not speaking to himself. He's speaking to Noah and uttering this promise to Noah. But as he does so, we should remember that these promises being spoken.

To Noah and his sons are being spoken in response to Noah's sacrifice on the altar. As Henry Morris says, God promised here. As a result of Noah's sacrificial offerings. Also, a second preliminary observation, notice that God's covenant with Noah and his sons is preceded by, I guess what we can call a preamble of blessing in verses 1 through 7.

Genesis 9 in verse 1 opens with the words, and God blessed Noah and his sons and said, And what God says goes all the way to verse 7, and what this indicates is that everything that God says in verses 1 through 7 is a part of the blessing that he is bestowing upon Noah and his sons on this side of the flood. So we can word it this way in verse one, God blesses them. With powers of procreation. In verse 2, God blesses them with continued dominion over the animals.

In verses 3 and 4, God blesses them with an expanded dietary allowance. God had told Adam, you can eat of the plant, you can eat fruits and vegetables. Here, God actually expands man's dietary allowance and says, I give you animals. To eat, which is an amazing grace from God, is it not?

You would think that God could have said after the flood, because mankind blew it, I'm going to let you eat, but I'm actually going to restrict your dietary allowance. before it was fruits and vegetables, now you're only allowed to eat vegetables. Only broccoli and spinach. And cauliflower from here on out, he could have done that and restricted, but instead in such an act of grace, he expands man's dietary allowance, and every time we eat chicken.

And eat steak. And enjoy the smell of bacon. and eat a hamburger or a ham sandwich, we are living in the good of this blessing, this expansion that God is. Offering here in verses 5 and 6, God blesses them with justice that protects human life, and then in verse 7, God blesses them with an invitation to populate abundantly the earth.

So I just say all that to say that all the elements are here. There's sacrifice, and then there's blessings, and then there is the covenant proper, which we will study. Today. So here's how we'll break this down.

I just want us to look at 5 acts of God that are embodied in this covenant that he is voicing to Noah and to his sons. Act number 1, God identifies Himself as the sole maker of this covenant. He identifies himself as the sole maker of this covenant. Look at verse 8.

Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, Now behold, and literally the Hebrew goes like this, now behold, I myself do establish my covenant. Notice the language here. I myself do establish my covenant. And 3 times in this passage, God refers to the covenant as my covenant in verse 9, verse 11, and verse 15, and here God is identifying Himself as the one who establishes this covenant that is His covenant.

God is saying this is my covenant, and I'm ratifying it myself. When my wife and I got married, I could not have spoken this way. To her. I could not have referred to our marriage covenant as my covenant because our marriage covenant involves two promise makers.

Instead, I would say it's our covenant. I also could have never said to my wife, I myself am establishing this marriage covenant. I couldn't speak that way because our marriage covenant is a two-party covenant requiring two people to establish it. Our marriage covenant is a bilateral covenant.

Requiring two promise makers for it to become established, but here in Genesis 9, God is the only promise maker of this covenant, and He is the only ratifier of the covenant. Yes, there's other parties involved in this covenant, but they're passive parties who simply benefit from it. This covenant actually requires nothing from Noah. And from his sons or from the human population.

As R. Kent Hughes says about this covenant, he says this covenant is unilateral. It does not require any assent, action, or ratification from mankind, not even acknowledgement. So God identifies Himself as the establisher of this covenant.

Observe what he does next, and this brings us to the second act of God as he voices this covenant to Noah and to his sons, and that is he identifies the recipients. Of the covenant Notice all the identifiers that indicate who the beneficiaries of this covenant are. First of all, we're told in verse 8 that God speaks His covenant to Noah and his sons, so we know that they're the original audience. Of this covenant, but as God begins to speak to Noah and his sons in verse 9, he indicates those who will benefit from this covenant.

The recipients of this covenant involve more than Noah and his sons. Observe what he says in verse 9. He speaks of my covenant with you, that's Noah and his sons, and with all your descendants after you, that's all of us and every human being. With every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, every beast of the earth with you, of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast or living thing.

Of the earth So based on what God Has communicated here, every living human and animal for all time are on the receiving end of this covenant. This means we call this the Noaic covenant, but it, it means that this is also the Miltonian covenant. Because I'm one of the passive parties of this covenant. I'm one of the people that this promise is being made to, and you can put your own name in here.

You can even put your pet's name. Seriously, and here as well, God literally is establishing a covenant between Himself and every single human and bird and land dwelling animal of every generation, and included in all of that is you. So God has identified Himself as the sole establisher of this covenant. He's also identified the recipients of the covenant, but what in particular is the covenant promise?

And that brings us to the third act of God as he makes this covenant with us, and that is that God promises never again. To send a globally destructive flood, he promises to never again send a globally destructive flood. He says, I establish my covenant, verse 11 with you. And all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood.

Neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth. All flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood. Notice the words never again. You could almost reduce the covenant down to just these two words.

We see the words never again, twice in Genesis chapter 8, verse 21, as God is speaking to Himself, promising to never do this again. And then we see the words never again in verse 11 and in verse 15. And here God is saying, never again shall all flesh be cut off. By water of the flood, and then he says, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.

The great global flood did not simply kill every living thing except that which was on the ark, but it also wreaked havoc and destroyed the earth as it existed at that time. So notice the twofold aspect of God's promise. He's promising that I will never again destroy all flesh. By the water of the flood, and a flood will never destroy the earth.

In this way again. Now notice as you read the promise in verse 11 that nowhere do you see the word if. God does not say, I promise to never send a flood again if You keep my commandments. If you don't kill your fellow men.

If the earth does not become filled with violence again, if you behave better than the people did before the flood, then I promise I will never send a flood again. There's no if here. God makes promises here that have no conditions at all. This is an unconditional covenant that's not dependent upon anything that we do or don't do in order for God to hold up his end of this promise, and this is an amazing grace.

From God. Imagine how insecure we would all be. Imagine how insecure Noah and his sons would be. If this were a conditional promise, and we're always wondering, are things as bad as they were before the flood that would initiate.

Another global flood. Now what I love about this passage, this tells us so much about God is that he's not content to simply voice. The promise of this covenant. He wants to go beyond that and actually give to Noah and his sons and all of us a sign of this covenant as an ongoing witness to the promise that he has made.

He didn't have to do this, but he wanted to reinforce this promise. The same was true with my wife and I on our wedding day. We were not content to simply make promises to each other, but we wanted to give each other a sign. Of those promises, and that was the ring.

In the Bible, we see that the sign of God's covenant with Abraham was circumcision. The sign of his covenant with Israel, according to Exodus 31:13-17, was the Sabbath. We could say that the sign of Christ's covenant with us and the new covenant is the sign of the bread and the cup. And in a similar way, God wants to provide a sign for this covenant that He's making with Noah and his sons and with all of us.

And that is to provide the sign. Of the rainbow, and that leads us to the 4th act of God, and that is that God gives the rainbow as the sign of the covenant. He gives the rainbow as the sign of this covenant. The promise would have been sufficient, but God wants to give Noah and all of us a token to hold on to something tangible.

In the natural world that would serve as a permanent memorial of this covenant promise here, observe what he says in verse 12. God said, This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all successive generations. I set my bow in the cloud. And it shall be for a sign of a covenant between me and the earth, and it shall come about when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow will be seen.

In the cloud God calls the sign of His covenant here a bow. And so when you think of a bow, just think of a bow and arrow. That's what's what this Hebrew word is that is translated as bow. This is the word actually that speaks of a warrior's bow that is used to shoot arrows at an enemy.

In verse 13, God calls this warrior's bow. He calls it my bow. And he says, I will set my bow in the cloud. And he also says that the bow will be seen in the cloud.

Now this is intriguing, and commentators wrestle with this. At first blush, this seems like an odd sign. For a covenant of peace. A bow A weapon in battle.

In pagan accounts, a constellation of stars in the shape of a bow was a god's way of symbolizing some victory that he had achieved or of letting everyone know I got this thing at my disposal if I ever need to use it. According to Nehem Sarna, who is a Jewish commentator, in some cultures of the ancient world, stars in the shape of a bow were a sign of hostility from the gods. So if the bow is a weapon in battle, why would God put The bow in the sky as a sign of this covenant of peace.

Isn't that like hanging a paddle from your child's ceiling as a token of a promise that you will never spank them?

Again, Imagine saying to your child, like, son, I promise to never spank you again, and as a token of my promise, I'm gonna hang this paddle from your ceiling right over your bed. At first blush, it feels a little bit odd here that God would do this, but let's think about this. If we imagine and see that the rainbow, if we, if we think of it as an actual bow, an arrow in that bow would not be pointing to the earth, but away from the earth. If God does intend for us to think of the warrior's bow in this passage, when we see the rainbow, then it might be that he's wanting us to see that the bow is not poised and flexed in our direction.

As Bruce Waltke, the great commentator, says about this, he says, and I quote, Here in the rainbow, the warrior's bow is hung up, pointing away from the earth. Aside from the direction of the bow, the most important thing about the bow is that it has no arrow in it. The rainbow is an arrowless bow. And this arrowless bow could be seen as a sign of God's gracious promise to never again send.

A global flood. Whatever one thinks about the idea of the bow being a warrior's bow, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the rainbow is beautifully composed. Of many colors, which certainly is intended. By God to represent the manifold or literally the multicolored grace of God, and this may explain why in First Peter 4:10, Peter describes the grace of God in this way, literally in the Greek, the multi-colored grace of God.

Perhaps this is why in Ephesians 3:10, Paul speaks literally in the Greek of the multicolored wisdom of God. That is made known through the church. To the principalities and powers, a plan that Paul says that God had hidden in ages past. But now in Paul's day, God is bringing to light.

Therefore, it could be said that the rainbow is not simply the sign that God would not destroy the Earth again, but it is a sign that he won't destroy the Earth because he has something really amazing planned instead, and the rainbow is an early beacon of that coming thing. Not always, but typically rainbows appear when the weather is threatening, right? Perhaps it has just rained or it is about to rain. Either way, the sign of the rainbow serves as a bright promise against the backdrop of dark clouds.

It tells us that sunlight is breaking through and that the dark clouds will not have the last word. Think about how badly Noah. would have needed this clear promise from God and the sign. Of the rainbow.

Think about how helpful the rainbow would have been. Imagine having lived through 40 days and nights of torrential rain and then floating out in the sea for months after that. Imagine living through all of life on Earth, perishing and dying in this catastrophe. And then imagine in the days after Noah and his family.

Get off the ark. Imagine them seeing clouds forming in the sky. Imagine them experiencing rain. Imagine them hearing thunder and enduring a thunderstorm.

It would be hard for them not to be traumatized. By these things and to wonder if this is the beginning of another global catastrophe. You and I have never gone through what Noah and his sons have just lived through, so none of us can appreciate how important this unconditional promise. is for them and how precious the sign of the rainbow would have been for them.

In the 2nd Republican debate several weeks ago, Chris Christie. He was talking about his own experience of 9/11 and the days that followed it, and he talked about the fear that that everyone felt. And how paranoid they were for weeks after the attacks, and he said this. He says every time a plane went overhead for weeks after that, people's heads jerked to the sky because they thought it was happening again.

And many of us remember those days after the terrorist attacks, and this resonates with us, and we have to understand that NOAA would have experienced. That same feeling whenever he saw clouds form in the sky or whenever it rained or thundered, so it's very important that God give to Noah this promise here. And that God give to Noah and his sons this sign. Here in our passage today, God is very explicit, and he makes his promise very clear to Noah that no such rains or clouds would ever materialize into a global flood upon the earth, and he provides them with a beautiful sign.

A promise But God does more than provide Noah and his sons and all of us with a sign with a wonderful personal touch. God explains to Noah and his sons how it is that he, God, personally will respond to the sign of the rainbow whenever he sees it. That leads to the 5th and final act of God. In His voicing of this covenant with Noah and his sons, and that is that God explains how he will respond to the sign of the covenant.

He explains how he will respond to the sign of the covenant. Look at verse 14, and it shall come about when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow will be seen in the cloud. Clearly the implication is that we will see the bow in the cloud, but observe what God says next, verse 15, and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And never again Shall the water become a flood to destroy.

All flesh. We often think that the rainbow is put in the sky to remind us. To be a reminder to us that God will never flood the earth again, that's certainly true, but actually God here is telling Noah and his sons that whenever he and we see the sign of the rainbow, that God will remember. His covenant to never send another global flood.

You might want to mark the word remember, and please keep in mind that for God to remember His promise when he sees the rainbow does not imply that he forgets. That promise at other times. The word remember is covenant language. When Jesus during the celebration of communion says do this in remembrance of me, he's not implying it's OK to forget me.

At other times, but just make sure you remember me here. He's not condoning forgetfulness, and, but the word remember is covenant language, and it speaks of covenant faithfulness. The word remember simply means to be mindful of something, and it does not imply forgetfulness prior to that moment of mindfulness. God never sees a rainbow in the sky and says, Oh, that's right, I promised to never send another flood, and I am so glad I saw that because I was just about to send another global flood.

That never happens. That's not how it works. In fact, look at verse 13. God says, I set my bow in the cloud.

So whenever the rainbow appears, it appears because God Himself put it there. And God wants us to know that when we see a rainbow that he put in the sky, God in that moment is thinking. About the promise that he made here in Genesis chapter 9. God is telling us whenever you see a rainbow in the sky, I want you to think about 3 things.

Number 1, think about the fact that I put that there. Number 2, think about the promise that I made thousands of years ago to never send another global flood again. And number 3, think about the fact that I am right now at this moment thinking about. The promise that I made.

Evidently, the rainbow is not simply the sign of an ancient promise. It is a signal of what God is thinking about right now in this moment. In the very moment that we are beholding a rainbow. And then beautifully with a comforting redundancy, God states this even more specifically in verse 16.

Look at verse 16. He says, when the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on. The earth. God wants us to know that he looks upon the rainbow just as we do, and when he does so, he remembers his covenant.

He remembers what he promised. He remembers who his covenant is with every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth, and he remembers the fact that his covenant is an everlasting covenant. Every time God sees a rainbow, he remembers his promise. He remembers the recipients of the promise, and he remembers and thinks upon the eternality of his promise, and that is comforting.

God then concludes by saying verse 17, and God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is on. The earth. Commentators talk about how redundant the language is. In this passage, and they're right.

This is very redundant. God could have spoken half the volume of words that he does here and still conveyed the same idea. But is it not true that you and I, that we're redundant too, when we're trying to speak comfort to somebody? And to put them at ease.

This is God speaking deep comfort to Noah's heart in a way that's designed to go deeper into Noah's heart with each repetition. Through the repetition of words and themes and through the giving of the sign of the bow, God is giving to Noah and his sons overwhelming assurance that they are safe and that they don't ever have to worry about God ever destroying the earth through a flood of water again. right. Just some concluding thoughts here.

What we learn here in this passage is that, again, God is a covenant-making and a covenant keeping God. Who wants relationships with people that are grounded. In covenant, and there's something wonderfully endearing about a God who would bother making covenants with humanity. God is so exalted.

Mankind is like a drop in the bucket. Compared to him, according to Isaiah, all the nations of the earth are nothing to him. They are even less than nothing to him. In comparison to His Majesty and His greatness, and yet God This highly exalted God makes covenants with man.

He utters promises, and he encourages men to hold him to those promises. For God to enter into a covenant with man means that he takes man seriously and that he deems us to be fitting recipients of his covenants. There's something exalting and ennobling about being the recipient of a covenant that the God of the universe makes with us. And there is something profoundly endearing.

About a God who would bother making a covenant with his creatures. Seriously, imagine yourself making a covenant with a colony of ants. Who in this room would bother doing that? And the difference between you and the ants is not nearly so vast.

As the difference between you and God. And yet God enters into covenants with mankind just as He does in our passage today, and the covenants only get better. This is just a covenant not to destroy. It only gets richer and better as the Bible unfolds.

We live in a dysfunctional society where broken promises. Are the norm, they are expected, but the Bible offers us a picture of God who is profoundly relational, who makes covenant promises, and who keeps his covenant promises. That is a God worth loving. And surrendering ourselves to What we see in our passage today is a covenant that God made thousands of years ago, and ever since then, he has been faithful to that covenant.

To this day, you and I are living in the good of that several 1000 year old promise that God made and that he is still keeping. The tragic thing is that nowadays those who celebrate immorality. And rebellion have stolen the sign of the rainbow and made it an emblem for the acceptance of sexual rebellion against God. Which is astounding.

The rainbow is the sign of God's promise that no matter how wicked man gets, God will never destroy the earth again through a flood. But nowadays people take the symbol of God's grace towards sinners, and they make it the emblem of their sin. Nowadays, when most people in our culture see the sign of the rainbow, they think of pride in sexual perversion, instead of thinking about the gracious mercy of God who is holding the powers of judgment at bay. And withholding judgment from deserving sinners.

This is a sign of amazing grace, and it's been turned into a sign of pride and glorying in sexual perversion. Not surprisingly, one of the primary goals of this particular movement that has stolen the sign of the rainbow is to attack the institution of marriage. This should not surprise us because marriage is the ultimate covenant relationships. Among all the relationships.

On earth, it is the relationship in which we display the image of God by being covenant makers and covenant keepers with a member of the opposite sex. Wherein we covenantally embrace the otherness of an opposite gendered person for life and experience the growth and the flourishing that goes with that embrace. So don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The rainbow represents the glories of a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God.

It represents God's gracious covenant mercy towards sinners. It represents the fact that while God does have powers at his disposal, To destroy us, he refrains from doing so because of a massive series of sacrifices that Noah offered up to God as soon as he came out of the ark, sacrifices that point us to the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus Christ Himself. He was crucified on the cross. Interestingly, if there were an arrow in most rainbows we see.

Those arrows would be pointing back at God. And this would make sense because there's an even greater act of God's judgment. Than the flood That's happened since then. It happened 2000 years ago when Christ was on the cross.

And he took upon himself the judgment that we deserve for our sins. Ponder that for a moment. A greater judgment than the global flood happened 2000 years ago, and it was God who bore that judgment. In the person of his Son Jesus Christ.

In Psalm 38, the psalmist is talking about what it feels like to be on the receiving end of God's wrath, and he says to God in Psalm 38:2, your arrows have sunk deep into me. And that's what Christ experienced at the cross as the arrows of God's wrath went deep. Into him And as a result of Christ's sacrifice, God refrains from giving to repentant and Christ-believing sinners the judgment they deserve. And he gives them instead lavishly his multicolored grace instead.

If you're here today and you have never Believed in Jesus and looked to him. And experience God's manifold grace through Him. I call upon you to repent of your sins. And believe in him and cry out to him today and fly to Jesus Christ, who took the arrows of God's wrath for you.

If you are a believer. Reflect the image of your covenant making and covenant keeping God in your life by being faithful to your covenants. Being true to your word, husbands, wives, be faithful to your spouse, to the covenants that you have made with them. Whether you are married or not, be a person who is true to your promises and commitments that you make.

When you do that, you're reflecting the image of your covenant keeping God. Lastly, cherish the multicolored grace of God and cherish the fact, this is one of Ed's favorite passages in 1 Peter 4:10, where when Peter does talk about the multi-colored grace of God, he talks about it in the context of we are stewards as Christians in the church of the multi-colored grace of God. And we are sharing that and evidencing that and manifesting the various colors of God's multicolored grace as we engage in ministry and use our spiritual gifts for the benefit of one another in the community of Christ Church.

I would also tell you to enjoy being the church.

This church here is simply the church being the church. Enjoy being the church through which God intentionally. Displays his multicolored wisdom before the world just like the rainbow back in Noah's day and even today. God wants the church to be a beacon, a multi-colored beacon of His mercy to the world.

Let's savor these things and live accordingly. Let's pray together. Lord, we stand in awe of, as great and catastrophic as the global flood was. A greater judgment happened and you were on the receiving end.

You put yourself on the receiving end of that judgment at the cross. I don't know this for sure, but I just have to wonder if when you put the rainbow in the sky. With it turned in a direction to where the arrow would be pointing upward, what all you were saying by that. You took the arrow of the wrath that we deserve.

And you are a good God. We just worship you this morning, we cherish you, we, we, we listen in as you're talking to Noah and his sons, and we just love your way, Lord. You just have a way, you think about everything. You don't just make a brief, quick promise, you repeat it, you're redundant, you give a sign and then even talk about the sign.

Here's what I'm gonna do when I see it and I want you to know this. You think of everything. And how to speak comfort and assurance to our hearts. And when we open up the New Testament to passages like Romans 8 and elsewhere, you are redundant, you are repetitive, you say it again and again, you speak such great mercy and hope to the hearts of those who are your people.

And yet even still, we sometimes don't hear you. Give us ears to hear and eyes to see how great and glorious you are. May we love you. More than ever.

Because of all these ways that you have shown your love to us. I thank you for these brothers and sisters that are gathered here today, Lord. What a blessing to be here. What a thrill for me to be here among them.

Bless this church. The ministry center. Bless these brothers and sisters. May they go forth from here today in the strength of Jesus Christ and in the assurance of his.

Of your unconditional promises of amazing grace. We ask these things in the name of Jesus and all God's people said. Amen.