Introduction
Let me begin with a discipleship question: will we trust and obey Jesus in the real decisions of everyday life? Christ forms us through truth received, repentance practiced, and obedience lived out.
Main Points
Grace and Justification
genesis chapter 6 we're going to look at this morning really only covering a couple verses we're going to read through right now verses 1 through 8. and then i really just want to highlight one verse that gives us i hope some encouragement as we look back to a time in the history of man and god and we read this story that i hope most of you have at least heard there's something that i find in the interaction that god has with the state of the world at that time that is so encouraging for what i believe god still has for the way that he interacts with the world today so why don't we start by reading verses one through eight and then i'm going to tell you what verse out of those eight is really the main emphasis this morning it starts by saying this it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them that the sons of god saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose and the lord said my spirit shall not strive with man forever for he is indeed flesh yet his days shall be 120 years there were giants on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of god came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them those were the mighty men of who were of old men of renown and we're not going to go again in depth i point all of you to the wednesday study but this is the passage of scripture that begins to really allow some people to deep dive into the theories of what this is tom covered it very briefly on wednesday first service the best we could come up with was potentially maybe the lineage of where we get bigfoot in here and that's as much as i'll say because the bible really doesn't give any definitive answer and so the best bible teacher oftentimes is the bible so most of the things that you can hear about theories as to what was going on pre-flood are the best inferences that we can make without real concrete answers what we do know pre-flood god did a survey of the state of the world and saw it was increasingly evil it was getting increasingly wicked and that's what it says in verse 5 then the lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually so we don't get the state of affairs that comes in real concrete details although you can again make inferences the world was blowing up in population there seems to be some sexual perversion some people will read some demonic perversion into that and we also see what is clearly stated in the word that people's thoughts were just all about evil and from that will flow whatever version of the wicked and perverse generation we study in the history of mankind it starts with evil thoughts being continually coming out of the hearts and minds of people that's what happened then and that is why we can study this now and say how does god deal with the evil and perverse generations that are continually thinking evil thoughts and we can parallel that now because we live as the bible says of genesis chapter 6 as the bible says of the generation that jesus came to do earthly ministry and certainly as we do a survey as holy spirit discerning people now we can see that we live in another time where there's evil and there's wickedness and there's perversion that is clear to our generation the root of all of the evil that we see is what we just read that the heart was only evil continually how that manifests will vary based off where you live and the technology available but the what is happening then and is happening now is when the heart devises evil there will be tragedy and sin and all sorts of reasons for god's just wrath to be poured out and that's what we see now so what happens it says in verse 6 as the lord surveys and sees the wickedness it says that he was sorry that he made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart so the lord said i will destroy man who i have created from the face of the earth both man and beast creeping thing and birds of the air for i am sorry once again that i have made them but noah found grace in the eyes of the lord that's where we stop the scripture reading for genesis 6 and i hope that we can get an overview of what noah finding grace in the eyes of the lord meant for him and his family because this is god finding a one man and his family set apart for his righteousness to be preserved in the midst of his just wrath being poured out that is what we learn from noah and that is essentially what the story of the ark is pointing us to with great detail that should help us understand that this is a moment in human history that actually happened that god is a god that had a very clear plan of redemption in mind and that god used noah to proceed in his plan for redemption that is still happening unto this day but the point of this is that noah was set apart and he was different i want to pull out one theme from this that i hope we can be encouraged by for our day and this will really piggyback off something that tom said for his wednesday night study because the days of noah were not unique there are things that we can learn about what was happening in the state of the world and really what god did with the heart of god in reaction because jesus says in matthew chapter 24 as in the days of noah when he's describing the scene that will be set for his second coming for when he returns to set all things to right to usher in the righteous kingdom that we are all waiting for today he says it will be very much like the days of noah it'll be very much like what we just read in genesis chapter 6. and here's the marker as so many of us and church-goers and the certain climate of our world right now are wondering about end times this is what jesus says he says as in the days of noah when they were drinking and they were giving in marriage and they were marrying and they were going about their life as if nothing was ever going to change so it will be when the lord comes back when the lord comes back he will find the state of the world in a place of perversion and wickedness in a fallen state from the good garden that he planted and it will come like a thief in the night and that is the end times teaching that all of us should be clinging to that it could come in a moment when we least expect it that it could come at any time just like in the days of noah they were drinking and eating and marrying and all of a sudden it started to rain and it didn't stop for 40 days and 40 nights and the only people who were left was one family so it is with us are we living our lives expectant of at any moment the day comes when we meet the lord because what we find in the story of noah is a time where god's mercy at times must be eclipsed by god's wrath to deal with the evil that will always spiral farther and farther out of control until he intervenes and when he intervenes it will come as a shock to the system but he will intervene and there will be people that have heard the message that we will be listening to today that it could come at any moment are you ready now here's the verse that i want to draw all of us to this morning it's a verse that i hope will prepare our hearts for readiness it's a verse that i hope will invite some of us to a place with god that will get you in your heart and in your mind and in your life as you follow him to a place of eager expectation and the day of the lord is not something you fear but it's something that you eagerly await and here's the verse of the hour it says in genesis chapter 6 verse 3 and the lord said my spirit shall not strive with man forever one verse that we can hinge so much of the heart of god onto our theology to help us understand what we're waiting for and what we're waiting in he says my spirit shall not strive forever for they're indeed flesh they're going to die i'm going to limit their years to 120 this is not going to go on forever and it's the precursor to him saying and enough is enough i now must intervene i will not strive forever and in the same way we look at the state of our world and we say god what is going on or you may think in your life as you come to church i don't know where i stand with god we believe in a god who will in fact strive for his people i want to give you the definition of what it means to strive it says to wrestle vigorously that's what it means to strive with someone is that you have something that is like a tug of war and genesis chapter six is certainly a picture of that because even just last week genesis chapter 4 we looked at the unfolding of god's good creation turning bad it turned bad initially with adam and eve disobeying and what happens as they disobeyed they now have the knowledge of evil they now have the knowledge that they're exposed before the lord and in their disabil disobedience their exposure should lead to death so they're afraid and they begin to strive with god it says they cover themselves and they hide and the lord like a good father knowing the answer but allowing children to confess says where are you this is a wrestling for the state of the relationship and then not one generation later cain and abel come on the scene we studied it last week and cain offers an offering of vegetables and because of something going on in his heart and because of something going on in the way that he offered it with a lack of faith and with the insertion of pride it said that the lord did not accept his offering so what happens striving begins says cain i don't accept your offering but don't have a sad face don't be burdened by my but by my correction of your offering if you do well by me i will do well by you but if you don't sin is crouching at your doorstep and its desire is to rule over you there is now a wrestling match with the will of god that cain has and what happens sin in fact does rule over him and by adam and eve they have one son they have two sons and now murder is on the scene we have our first murder there is a wrestling between the flesh of man and the spirit of god because the spirit of god never designed us to murder one another he never designed us to have long countenance and burdens and by cain we have that fast forward to the end of genesis chapter 4 which we didn't get to last week but i'll quickly summarize because it gives the genealogy of cain and what do we find it's not long after adam and eve give birth to cain that cain has in his line a man named lamech and what happens with lamech we have the first example remember the book of genesis we're going to find a lot of those first we have the first example of a man taking more than one wife taking more than god's design purpose for something which really sin is rooted in sin will take something that god designed and twist it to make it something that is beyond what he intended and we see that with lamech and his second wife and then lamech represents to us the spiraling of man away from god because cain is farther than adam and eve and lamech is much farther than cain and we get a picture of that when in genesis chapter 4 lamech cries out almost in song as like an antithesis to worship he says to his many wives cain murdered and was avenged sevenfold but i murder more i'll be avenged seventyfold in other words he's like kane was nothing he killed one brother big deal i can kill way more than cain i'm way worse than kane it says that cities were then built up that were filled with violence and we now have the striving between man and god because throughout all of that god is holding the line god said to adam in the day that you disobey you will die but he doesn't die it's a metaphoric death that will be the death of his spirit against god and he'll die hundreds of years later and he holds the line he gives cain protection for his life and he holds the line and he allows lamech to make his boasts and grab his wives and build his cities and he doesn't intervene and he doesn't intervene and he's wrestling and wrestling and wrestling with the flesh of man and the spirit of god and that is the state of our world today because we believe in a god who wrestles for his people and that's the second definition of striving the first one is to wrestle vigorously with something and the second definition is to obtain something so you strive for something that you desperately want and that's god's desire in fact we see in verse 6's six and seven that he has a grieving in his heart through this wrestling that he had an end goal in mind that it wouldn't be just to wrestle so that he could say he won at the end by destroying the earth and being more powerful than wicked man but he wanted to draw men to himself it says in verse six he was sorry that he made man and it grieved his heart so now again we look back to last week remember we saw the bad offering that cain made paralleled in the teachings of jesus in matthew chapter 23 when he says righteous blood of abel cries out now you always kill the prophets the bad offering always kills the good offering bad religion precedes spirit-led religion and jesus spent all of that teaching calling out the scribes and the pharisees telling them that their bad religion will not count in the end heavy burdens and doing things to be seen and making offerings just so that you could feel well within yourself it has nothing to do with actual worship and then at the very end he says jerusalem if only i could have brought you to myself he's wrestling and he's grieved so that in the end they could be together and when i read the definition of striving i couldn't help but think of my wife it's like i had to wrestle her to win her i had to convince her that i actually was a nice guy and then there came a point where it's like are we going to seal the deal and this is the idea of wrestling towards relationship because the word of the lord is true then and it's true now he wrestles for you in fact it says the spirit of the lord will only strive for so long or it says the spirit of the lord shall not strive with man forever and the spirit of the lord is unleashed in our day in the same way jesus says to his disciples as he's approaching the cross it's better that i go because if i leave the helper will come speaking of the holy spirit speaking of the spirit of god that will invade the hearts and the minds of the people that now have access to god through his spirit and what does he say the role of the spirit is john chapter 16. he says i will send the helper to come to you if i depart i send him to you and when he has come he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment god releases his spirit in the day of pentecost it comes with the amazing message of god's love for all of the nations and it comes through the preaching of peter at pentecost with a message of conviction of sin it's good news message whenever you preach the gospel it has to be good news contrasting bad news which is man is increasingly evil woman is part of the unraveling of man and woman unraveling against god there is a judgment that is coming for our wicked hearts and we know that we are wicked in our hearts why because god gives us the power of his spirit to tell us when we do wrong to convict us to give us that holy guilt that says this is not the way that i was supposed to live and so praise god that the verse starts with he won't strive forever which means god for every one of us this morning and for the generation that we're part of now has sent his spirit into this world now to wrestle with you to wrestle with some of you very specifically that said man i don't even know if i should go to church this morning because i got that guilt i got that burden i have ideas and plans that might be violated by the perfect will of god for my life because i know the gate is narrow and the broad path is a lot easier and god brings you in and this message i hope has the power of the holy spirit to wrestle your flesh and strive with you and it's also a message for the generation that we're a part of now as we read the headlines that we all scroll through our phone and we see the state of the world and if you have a the power of the holy spirit in you if you have the divine spark of morality still in you know that the state of the world is not in a good place the state of the world is divided it's divided politically it's divided religiously the state of the world has wars and rumors of wars and we see now when the state of the world is that way we're reminded in genesis 6 and we're reminded now that this is grieving to god's heart and he is now sending his spirit to wrestle this generation to himself he wants to wrestle this generation to himself one by one by one and every time you hear the word preached there is now going to be a wrestling match for your life what will you do with the word of god given to you today as you nod your head in agreeance and say amen as you hold your hands high in the presence of god through worship and prayer and you leave the sanctuary and you hit the street the wrestling and the striving with god will begin and the question we all have to ask is what will we do to give god the glory in our lives because here's the second half of this message and here's where this message turns into what we find is the destruction of the earth god wrestles for you he sends his spirit to convict you of sin and draw you to himself by the power of his kindness but it also says that he will not strive with us forever there is a meter there is a line that he holds there's an opportunity he gives every single one of us to hear his word and to respond with humility and saying yes and amen and follow the lord but he will not do it forever i'm so grateful that this is the heart of god that he does wrestle for every one of us and mindful this morning that as we represent the spirit of god to the world we also represent the spirit of striving the spirit of wrestling for the people that we see as lost the spirit of wrestling for people that we know god loves and desires to be part of his fold i was given the amazing invitation to join one of the oldest running longest running bible studies i shouldn't say oldest i should say longest because it's called growing old gracefully so they are seasoned with grace in fact i said this first service to all the college students we should all be part of that mindset to grow old gracefully because whether you know it or not you're growing old right now even if you don't feel it but i went into this bible study and just to check in really just wanted to say hi and uh i sat down just to just say hi reintroduced myself to everybody and i said what's going on they said hey can you pray for us i said sure how can i pray and every one of them at that table the prayer requests had one common theme they all had someone that they were striving for that they loved and there's maybe no better heart of the striving heart of god than to see the heart of a mother who has a son or a daughter that is not walking with the lord that is not obeying the call of god on their lives and that was what this was it was like i've got this son and they used to know the lord and now they're lost and they're hurting and they're broken and will you pray she's striving i have this husband i have a husband we've been married he has been to church in 10 years and i just want to keep praying because i know that he just needs to come back to the lord and to serve him and be part of our church again and one by one it was all an example of the heart of god for people who have gone astray in the perverse generation that we're a part of reflected in his people to say i've got to pray for that person that person should be sitting here that relationship needs to be mended can we just my son my daughter my neighbor my who is it and that's what it means to reflect god for the world that we live in and i say that because sometimes we study this it's like okay this is pointing us to end times in the days of noah jesus says the days of noah are like a reference point to the coming of him and how many of you over the course of the year have been interested in end times because you are ready to get the show on the road let's go i'm saved i've got my first stamp ticket to the ark i'm good like this can start raining if you ask me but it says that the lord waits and he holds on and he uses his people to be example of striving unto obtaining so that people that were lost could be brought in and he holds the line our god is so patient with us every single one of us aren't you glad that god strived for you aren't you glad that you had to hear the gospel a hundred times before you said yes and aren't you glad that even after you said yes you went a hundred different ways from left to right and the lord continually strived for you and like a good shepherd will go after a lost sheep he comes after every single one of us and if you say yes to that you've accepted the good news message that is the god that we serve and then he says now do likewise think about what jesus says to all of us about how to live out the relationships of striving for one another just inside the church let alone to a wicked perverse generation he says in matthew chapter 18 if your brother sins against you what do you do well if you're part of the culture that we live in you hit the cancel button or you hit block or you delete the number and you unfollow and you stop responding and you see them at the grocery store and you turn the other way because we don't strive very well for each other do we don't labor long for one another first corinthians says love suffers long is patient and is kind and in this generation people get one shot and then you're done and yet jesus says if a brother sins against you go and tell his fault between you and him alone and if he hears you've gained a brother you know the world of loneliness and sadness and depression and separation how many brothers are waiting to be gained in this sanctuary right now but then look what it says because this really isn't even striving this is just obeying the heart of god to love people it says if he will not hear you take with you one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established good he didn't listen to you that's okay i got a plan for that i'm not giving up on that person yet take a couple people maybe he'll listen if more people can confirm what's going on keep going keep trying keep hoping that something will change the lost brother could be found he says doesn't hear you fine if he refuses to hear him tell the church like get the church involved let's start praying for the broken relationships that god will strive to win if he doesn't live in the church we strive no more forever it says if he doesn't listen then let him go and i want to talk about that part of the process because that is where we're at in genesis 6 we see generational striving of god to reach into cain's life and to give patience to the wickedness of man and to hold the line and when he saws it they we saw they were too wicked he said i've got to decrease the lifespan and i'm going to give them now just 120 years to come to me holding the line holding the line holding the line and yet at some point it says the spirit of god will not strive forever god will not force us to live for him god gave adam and eve full freedom to disobey and it says that god's spirit won't strive forever it means he will he will wrestle with his holy spirit preaching will go out like seeds into the garden and he will water and he will plant and he will give every opportunity for ears to hear the message of his love and his redemption and his grace for your life but he will not make you f
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.