Genesis: "After the rain"

Genesis 8-9:17 ESV

But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore. In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. Then God said to Noah, "Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth." So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and 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 every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
"Whoever sheds the blood of man,

by man shall his blood be shed,

for God made man in his own image.
And you, be fruitful and multiply, teem on the earth and multiply in it." Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth." God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."

Rev Dwight Yoo

A Promise of Peace

God could have just ended the story of humanity here. But He does not. Instead God keeps His promise... What promise? The promise of love and intimacy from the beginning. He keeps His promise even when we break our part of it. God makes new covenants when the old one was broken.

God makes a promise not to flood the earth again. He will hang up His bow in the sky. He will no longer make war on mankind. Why? It comes after Noah's burnt offering. This sacrifice is not itself the reason. It is a symbol for the lamb of God. The one who would bring everlasting peace. The whole wrath of God is poured out onto Jesus. The judgement is taken by Christ. But there is a flip side. God will take up His bow again in the final judgement. The earth will end in fire.

A Pattern of Grace

You have to have storm clouds to see the rainbow.  This makes up part of the pattern for us too.  Israel went to the promised land after: slavery in egypt, the pharaoh's refusal and the sea in front of them.  And that's when they see God part the sea and destroy pharaoh's army.

Storms in life are not judgement for the Christian. They are so God can show us His character and His provision. We need rain for the rainbow. God shows up in the darkest of darkness. No storm of God's sending is permanent.

Proper response to Grace

After the flood, Noah sacrifices a burnt offering. This burnt offering is Noah surrendering his entire life to God. That is the only proper response to God's grace. Absolute submission to God. Giving the whole life over to God. His will be done. Not the Christian spin on the American dream.

Barriers II: Idolatry

2 Kings 17:1-17 ESV

In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned nine years. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him. Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria. And Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger, and they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, "You shall not do this." Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, "Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets." But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.

God's people have a tendency to go with their preferences. And their preferences are always end in idolatry.

This is a community gone wild. The community is no longer about God. Worship is no longer about God, but rather idols that they have fashioned.
Why?
They ignored God's instruction. Verse 14
They invested and found interest in idols. Verse 15
They became ignorant and instruments of idolatry. Verse 15b
They imitated a non-biblical way of life and instituted it. Verse 15c
They shared intimately and intentionally in idolatry. Verse 17

We are supposed to go from total depravity to total dependence, not independence.

Counterfeit gospels
Formalism
Activism
Socialism
Biblicism
Mysticism
Legalism
Psychologism

These all get in way of true community and being on mission.  Do not try to adjust your life to make this fit. You will have to lose something. Dreams. Parental expectations. Hobbies. Careers. Die to yourself and live to Christ.

Basics: A community in mission

Pastor Diddy

There is the Lostness to this world, emptiness, and a void. We as Christ disciples must own the lostness of the world. And we must also own the sentness by which Christ charges us.

The neighborhood is your context. It is not just an obstacle on the way to church. You should have a heart and compassion for west philly. That is the lost that we own. Not the pastors and the staff. But everyone who breathes of the Spirit is charged. We are not simply gathered, but primarily sent.

Missional Maturity

The church is an army of missionaries. To desire for the most known name in philly is not Michael Vic, but Jesus.

Missional Momentum

The church as a whole and individuals chasing the least, the lost.

Missional Mythology

The gospel is the center. We should worship Jesus rather than ideas about Jesus. We worship ideas rather than Christ. We are to love God rather than church hobby horses.

None of these things make disciples, Christ does
- coffee shops
- interactive web pages
- dressing down as opposed to dressing up
- saying church buzz words
- theological swag

Missional Mobilization

As the church scatters each day, they will create an environment of hope and grace. That those who have no hope, will see hope. At every point of contact, they see a kingdom beyond the pain and suffering. A place where broken messed up can worship God.

Practical ways to engage your Neighbors
+ Give holiday cards
+ Invite to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and cookouts
+ Rake leaves, shovel snow
+ Ask them how your can pray for them, pray for them, and tell them that you always do
+ Find out their interests

Some practical ways to engage your City
+ projects together as a community
+ random acts of kindness as a group
+ sports activities as a group, inviting nonbelievers and people
+ participate in efforts of city renewal
+ volunteer at schools
+ shop at the same stores

Some practical ways to engage one another
+ live out the "one-anothers"of scripture

Pizza, pitbulls, and the power of God
http://thriveinthecity.org/pizza-pitbulls-and-power-the-of-god/

Barriers I: Individualism

1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 27 ESV

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

Pastor Doug Logan (Diddy)

This is not going to be an exegesis. The individual rules we learn from church can muddle our theology. What saves, what is appropriate...  In the garden at the fall, we see bad theology, pride, and radical individualism. We want to go solo, do our own thing. Salvation means we are now in a community. It is not a solo thing. Individualism is an effect of the fall. We need to fight it intentionally to move towards community.

A picture of individualism
- Self at the center
- Everything revolves around the person
- Desire the world to nurture, exalt, and gratify self
- Personal success at the cost of all else
- Driven by satisfaction of self
- Standing up for one's right
- Getting one's due/Getting mine

Aspects of community that can be perverted
Sanctification:
+ a  work of the spirit to bless the community
- a holy journey towards God
Sacraments:
+ strengthening affirmation and being brought to the corporate  unit of the church
- ones continual reaffirmation

History of Community: Jeremiah 29:4-9

Jeremiah 29:4-9 ESV

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord.

Pastor Doug Logan

Background on Being a Community on Mission

There is a false dichotomy between holy living and mission minded. But we are in Christ, and in Him, we are missional as well as holy.

God sends the church into the world. Mission is the purpose and reason for the church. Mission exists because worship doesn't. The mission is hard to see as a movement of believers. We draw people through the unity in our church. We are convinced that we are posturing to convince people to follow God. But that is not missional. The community is not a bunch of lone rangers!

Mission is not going or getting, it is knowing. Unless you know God's sending mission, you don't get it. Understand the task, then you can get there. Not only is the church sent. But the holy spirit is sent as well.

The sending God sends the church
John 20, Hebrews 1, Acts 1

Mission is not about ideas or theology. It is about God who loves us saving our slimey stinking souls.

Genesis: A flood of evil, a flood of judgement, a flood of grace

Genesis 6 & 7

Rev. Dwight Yoo

Noah's ark is a story told to children. There are even toys. But it isn't really a cute story. There's depravity, death, and judgement. Noah's ark probably floated in a sea filled with bodies of men and animals. Our reaction should be awe rather than aww.

What God Sees

In creation, God saw and He saw good. Now He only sees evil. In mankind leaving God behind and turning our backs on Him, we have devolved to become less than human. Some evolutionists would say we are improving over time. Yet the bible describes the cancerous disease called sin.

Total depravity is a doctrine telling us that the total extent of us are corrupted. Not the amount but the reach. We are like a cup of water. Just a drop of poison pollutes the entire cup. Every aspect of ourselves is corrupt. Every inclination of our hearts are sinful. Everything is mixed motives, even christians. The heart of sin is turning from God and calling our own shots. It is the same heart in Adam and Eve.

What God Feels

God feels our sin. He is regretful and grieved. He feels it personally. We may feel God is distant and emotionally detached, but He is not. He decided to be connected to His creation. Our sin personally pains Him. The grief in genesis 6:6 is the most horrific emotion used in scripture. It is felt by the brothers of Dina, who was raped. The death of David's son, Absalom. The feelings of a deserted wife. Sin makes God feel like a rape, the death of a son, and the deserted wife. That is the pain God feels with each sin we do. God is patient and He endures. But at some point, God's patience runs out.

What God Does

God is love, but He is also just. God is patient, but He will also judge. God's judgement is not harsh, but just. Sin is turning from God, essentially treating God as if He was dead. Deicide, killing God. While we can't literally kill God. We live as if He was dead. So in taking a life, we are sentenced to death. Hell is simply God choosing to take Himself away from people who do not want Him. In doing so, God takes away life, love, joy, and all good things that He is the source of... The absence of God is what makes Hell hellish. The ruin of the world was already done, so God let them have their way. Utter destruction.

Noah found grace. This is the first mention of grace in the bible. Noah is far from perfect. (He gets drunk and wasted later...) God gives Noah his favor. Not only did Noah and his family go into the ark, but sin also went into the ark. So why the flood? God was pointing towards a future judgement and a future grace. Jesus, the seed of Noah, will save more than one family. The coming judgement will make sure that evil will be completely purged. Only Jesus will save us and stop these cycles of evil and judgement. He will usher in the new Eden.

Application

Believe

Pray for those who have yet to believe

Recognize the personal nature of sin

Genesis: Life East of Eden - Where Sin Abounds, But Grace Prevails

Genesis 4

Rev. Charles Han

These chapters show the spread and ramping up of sin. The area to the east of eden show how sin plays out.

The character of Cain's sin

Cain's offering is rejected, Abel's accepted. Cain brings a offering of produce. Abel brings the first-fruit of his animals. This can be interpreted to say that Cain brought a second rate offering. So Cain is rebuked for his cheap sacrifice. Hebrews 11:4 speaks of Abel's faith. Cain's sacrifice was to get God's blessing. Abel was seeking God. Cain was characterized by a faithless, loveless, & cheap sacrifice. Abel was giving a faithful, loving, and costly sacrifice.

Faithless and loveless towards God

When God rebukes Cain, he gets angry. Cain could have turned towards God and repented. Instead he gets angry and depressed. He doesn't get the reward he wanted. So the brokenness between God and Cain turns into brokenness between Cain and Abel. Envy is worse than covetousness. Covet makes a person steal. Envy makes us wish to destroy the thing someone has. In both cases, the person has empty hands, but in the case of envy...the desire is to empty the hands of the other person.

Envious and murderous towards Abel

The murder, the envy, the hatred is all forgivable. So why is the punishment so harsh? Cain has no concern for his brother. He excuses himself from that. He has more concern over the punishment than what he has fine. So God punishes hoping Cain will repent. Cain follows in the footsteps of his parents, Adam and Eve.

Stubbornly unrepentant

Consequences of sin

Sin is trying to destroy us. There is no middle ground with sin.

Sin devours.

Our relationships with others is distanced. Our walk with god is distant. We are never quite at home.

Sin alienates.

Sin gets worse. Adam and Eve sin. By the second generation, Cain murders his brother over a sacrifice. By the seventh generation, we see Lamech. Seven represents completion. Lamech can be seen as the finished endpoint of sin. Cain asked God for protection. Lamech has no such desire. He also introduces polygamy into the world. He breaks the institution of marriage. He is vengeful. He kills people for injuring him. He is without remorse. The disease of sin had run the full course. It ends with unloving and blind hearts, rock hard towards God.

Sin progresses.

Cure for sin

We bring second-rate sacrifices to God. So God brings the first-fruit sacrifice in our stead: Jesus.
Hebrews 12:22-24 Abel's blood cries out for justice, condemnation, and a curse. Jesus' blood cries out for mercy, forgiveness, and grace.

If the grace of God in Jesus dwells in your heart, you will bring first-rate sacrifices to God. You will walk closely with God.