(Sermon by Pastor Michael D. Schultz 05/21/06) 

INTRODUCTION:

You can surely see the images in your mind.  It’s as if we’re standing on land and there they are – the animals appearing in primary colors, the long-necked giraffe, the monkeys playfully hanging out the windows, Mr. and Mrs. Noah, standing behind the deck railing, smiling, and they’re waving and we’re yelling “Bon Voyage” as they prepare to go on their pleasure cruise.

Suffice it to say that it wasn’t like that.  It was one of the darkest days in the history of our world.  Hundreds of thousands lost their lives and went to an unending eternity of hell when the floodwaters burst forth from the earth and came crashing down from the sky.  Eight people were tossed about in the raging seas of the worst natural disaster ever, but it wasn’t natural.  It was supernatural.  God flooded the world, but he rescued one man and seven of his family members.  Why?  How?  That’s what’s going to occupy our attention – a true story of indescribable grace. 

Grace For Noah – Grace For Me

With whom do you identify in the story of Noah?  When we’re sitting in God’s house for another worship service, it’s pretty easy to think, “We’re the good ones whom God would have saved.  He’d have picked us for the boat ride if we lived back then.”  If not, well, then we’d have to identify with the people who perished.  Wicked?  Evil?  God ought to do away with us?  That’s rarely the opinion we have of ourselves.

We’d be Noah, huh?  Because Noah was the good guy, right?  No, Noah wasn’t.  He was born like we were, with every inclination of the thoughts of his heart being only evil all the time.  Of all the wicked people of that age, Noah was just one more, but one who found favor [grace] with God. 

God didn’t single out Noah for saving because of who Noah was.  Even before the whole flood episode, God rescued Noah because of who God was.  God promised Noah a Savior he couldn’t live without - Christ.  God gave Noah a holiness he didn’t have – Christ’s.  God gave Noah’s sins to a sinless person who willingly paid for them on a cross – Christ.  God gave Noah a faith he didn’t have – faith in Christ.  Noah was saved by grace.  Hebrews 11:7 - By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

Holy before God through trusting what Jesus would do for him.  Grace for Noah, grace for me.  This is your story – saved by grace.  Holy before God through trusting what Jesus would do for me.  Why, of all people, was Noah sitting in the ark for over a year, alive and safe?  When you answer that question, you’ll also have the reason that you’re sitting in God’s house as one who trusts in Jesus.  Why, of all people…I shouldn’t be here.  My body should be snagged in the roots of an uprooted tree beneath hundreds of feet of water, dead.  Likewise for my soul, dead in hell.  Instead the Holy Spirit reached out to me, showed me Jesus, gave me faith, saved my soul.  Why you’re here?  Why you’re a believer in Christ?  Noah would tell you one thing.  Grace!

How did God do that?  For our six confirmands this year, it happened when six different sinful men got their hands wet, got your heads wet, and God washed your sins away.  What the floodwaters did for Noah symbolizes what God did for you in baptism.  The same water that killed everyone else lifted Noah’s big barge and Noah and his family above all the death that took place at ground zero.  The water of your baptism, connected with God’s Word, lifted you up above the death that a sinner deserves and it put you up high and safe.  There’s a bundle of good gifts in your baptism.  With that sprinkle of water and eighteen spoken words, God granted you forgiveness, delivered you from death and the devil, and rescued you from sin to live with him forever and ever and ever.  You’ve been saved by water and God’s Word.

We said it during class but I’ll say it once more.  Take note of the day of your baptism.  You needn’t celebrate that day like a birthday, but don’t ever forget it.  God washed you clean and adopted you.  He baptized you into the death of Jesus and raised you with him to the new life of sin left behind, by God and by you.

Since we’ve talked about the grace God has shown you and how he rescued you, what remains is to hear from the Lord about how he’s going to keep you.  These words from God matter a lot.

I certainly don’t know what tragedy you have yet to suffer or what success you have yet to enjoy, but both the good things that happen and the bad things that happen can team up and go to work to loosen your grip on Jesus, like a thumb driven between clenched knuckles.  In the baptismal service there’s a prayer for the person being baptized: Keep him/her safe in the holy ark of the church.

Somehow, somewhere, God used the church to deliver Jesus to us.  The place where the good news about Jesus fills the air is the ark that we know as the church.  People who want nothing more for you than that you be with them and Jesus in heaven are the ark of the church.  If this church (as one example) is where God feeds your faith with the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, if this congregation (as one example) is a place where people encourage each other with the truth about Christ, if our synod and all its churches (as one example) can be called the holy ark of the church, then we want one thing for you – that not one of you fall overboard, that each one of you remain in the ark till it reaches land and you disembark on the shore of heaven.

That responsibility falls first to… God.  He promises to finish what he has begun in you.  He is faithful and he will do it.  That responsibility falls second to all of us.  At every baptism we promise to assist in whatever manner possible so that the baptized person remains a child of God until death.  Let’s mean what we promise.  That responsibility falls third to you.  You’ve been taught and you know that hearing and reading God’s Word and receiving Holy Communion are the ways God keeps you in the faith that he gave you when you were baptized, keeps you safe in the ark.  The Lord is pleading with you when he says, “Don’t cut yourself off from the things that keep your faith alive and strong.  Your Bible, your baptism, Christ’s body and blood – these things keep you joined to Jesus.  Don’t trade them away or give them up for anything!”  My young friends, stay with us.  Ride with us toward heaven and Jesus will get us there.

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