MAKING THE MOST OF A = BAD SITUATION - GENESIS 6

Last Sunday, we talked about “making mistakes that affect us all”= 212;Adam and Eve were the first to sin, but we would likely have done the same thing given the same set of circumstances; and certainly all of us do occasionally make mistakes that affect others, and when we do, we might as well own up t= o them: God knows!

In Genesis one, God brings order out of chaos, but in Genesis three, human bei= ngs like us begin breaking God’s laws—sinning and pushing the world back toward chaos. Then, as we continue through Genesis, the situation doesn’t improve. Genesis 4 introduces us to Cain and Abel, the first siblings, and by the middle of the chapter, Cain has killed= his brother Abel.

Then, the rest of chapters 4 and 5 tell us about the descendants of the first fam= ily, including Methuselah, Noah’s grandfather, who lived to be 969 years o= ld, the text says, and then died—how?--of drowning—in the Great Flo= od!

Now, the writer of Genesis doesn’t spell that out. He leaves it up to us to figure it= out by adding up all the numbers. In Genesis 7, we’re told that Noah is 600 years old when the flood comes, and that would be the same year Methuselah turned 969! Fascinating stuff, b= ut we’re not going to deal with that now—you can figure it all out= during Sunday School this morning!

Our focus today is on chapter 6, where God has “had enough,” and so= the Almighty decides it’s time to, well, “Make the Most of a Bad Situation!” Let&#= 8217;s pick up the story with verse 5 (Gen. 6):<= /p>

5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that e= very inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth= , and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. 9 This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless= among the people of his time, and he walked with God. 10= Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So Go= d said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is fil= led with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and t= he earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood;= make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wi= de and 45 feet high. 16 Make a roof for it and finish= the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and m= ake lower, middle and upper decks.

PHOTO OF ARK REPLICA IN THE NETHE= RLANDS

17<= /span> I am going to bring floodwate= rs on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everyth= ing on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my cove= nant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife = and your sons' wives with you. 19 You are to bring int= o the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with y= ou. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal an= d of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be k= ept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that = is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them." 22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

And as everybody raised in Sunday School can tell you, the story continues with Noah loading the boat, and then, the Bible says, “for forty days, the flood kept coming.” The= n, after several months, the ark comes to rest in the Ararat Mountains.

Noah sends out a raven, then a dove, and then another dove that comes back with = an olive branch—remember—then he sends the dove out one more time,= and this time it doesn’t return at all.&= nbsp; Soon Noah, his family, and the animals leave the ark and life on ear= th starts over. We may have lots= of questions, but this was God’s way of “Making the Most of a Bad Situation.”

How often we quote this passage from Romans 8:28—“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have b= een called according to his purpose.”&nb= sp; We turn to this verse--when?—in “troubled times,” right? It’s another rem= inder that God works to make the most out of bad situations.

Well, this is the message we find in the story of the great flood. God works through even the darkest= and most difficult of circumstances to make our lives and our world better.

After the storm, you remember, there’s a rainbow. It’s a reminder of God’= ;s presence with us and His promises to us.&n= bsp; As terrible and tragic as it was, the message of God’s grace is still here: again, God is “making the most of a bad situation.”=

But let’s be honest: this was a tragic event. It turned out horribly for most people. Hurricane Ike was a disaster, but it would have been much worse if people had not heeded the warnings and evacuated. =

The Bible says that Noah warned people for 120 years about what was coming. He told them to “evacuate= 221; their evil ways, to repent and return to God, but they mocked him and refus= ed to budge! But when the flood = came, there was no place to go. And= the result was total death and destruction for all except the few who prepared = and got on board the ark with Noah.

Now, granted there is nothing in our lives and hopefully there never will be anything in our world that begins to compare with this event. But we all face bad situations, we= all go through troubled times—so what can we learn from this sad story about Noah and the flood that might be helpful to us today?

1. Well, the first thing I would sugg= est is this: MAKING THE MOST OF A BAD SITUATION REQUIRES A CONNECTION WITH GOD<= /u>. That’s clearly the message in Romans, and it’s also here in Genesis. The times were troubled because pe= ople had turned their backs on God: verse 5: “The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”

Now, contrast that with what we’re told about Noah in verse 9: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked = with God.” “Walking wi= th God” is how the Bible describes the life of faith.

To walk with God is to pray and worship and practice God’s presence in our lives. It is “staying connected” with God. Our presence here this morning say= s we want this connection.

Before the flood, Noah counted this relationship with = God as a privilege. After the flood,= though, he understood the absolute necessity of it. The question for us is “how = much do we value our walk with God? What importance do we assign to it?”

So often, when life is good and the skies are clear, we don’t feel much need to stay in touch with God. We may get lazy in our devotional = life, or our church life. God just isn’t one of our “felt needs” when there are no storms on= the horizon.

But then something happens to rock our boat. It may be something as common as a= big test at school that we know we haven’t prepared for—so we start praying! (You know the saying= : “as long as teachers give tests, there will always be prayer in schools!”= ) Or we hear rumors of a shut down at the plant—and we start praying. Or a family member gets a life-thr= eatening diagnosis or he’s deployed to a war zone, a friend is in a serious ac= cident, or for some other reason the pressures on our lives becomes overwhelming—so we (what?) start praying.

Do you remember how it was after 9-11? The media made a big to-do about h= ow more people were showing up in church.&nbs= p; It didn’t last, but it did make an impact for awhile. If God had first sent a flood with= water, say, up to people’s necks, a lot of those who perished would have tri= ed to change their ways. Maybe G= od knew, however, that that would not have lasted long either.

The point is Noah, unlike others, stayed connected wit= h God and he was ready for God to use him when the crisis came. That’s not the time to START praying, friends, or to start worshipping and serving God—when the cr= isis has already arrived.

The time to love and serve and connect with God is NOW, before the crisis. If we wait= until the floods come, we may be in over our heads! Now is the time to get ready. Now is the time to connect with Go= d!

2. Here’s a second observation: MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD SITUATION REQUIRES A CONNECTION WITH PEOPLE= . Troubled times have a way of revea= ling who cares about you—whose love is real. Noah discovered who his friends we= re—or not--as he was building the ark. They were nowhere to be found.

Proverbs says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” My little s= ister would agree with that—I was so hard on her growing up, she was sure I= must have been born just to bring adversity into her life.

That’s not what the verse means. A f= riend and brother are going to support you no matter what you go through. They will be there in adversity. They’ll still be around when= the storms come.

The distinguishing mark of being connected with another human being is love, and love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”

(I Corinthians 13:7-8) It = can be hard to tell who really cares about you—until you go through troubled= times. It’s during adversity that r= eal friends prove themselves.

When times are tough, watch to see who gets in the boat with you—or you w/ them--that’s when you discover where the deep, strong connections are—with friends, or family, or whomever—it’s the “= bad times” that provide the truest test of genuine love.

3. Let’s end with this: MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD SITUATION REQUIRES A CONNECTION WITH GOD’S PLAN. If what happened with the great fl= ood tells us anything, it is that God is in control, and we are accountable bef= ore Him for how we live.

There is a simple, but revealing, story about twin sisters who had an alcoholic mother. Sadly, one of the sis= ters had also become an alcoholic, while the other sister totally abstained from alcoholic beverages.

When the first sister was asked to explain why she had become an alcoholic, she said, “Well, my mother was an alcoholic, so what can you expect?” The other sist= er was asked why she became a total abstainer, she said, “Well, my mother wa= s an alcoholic, so what can you expect?”

Friends, we are not simply victims of heredity and environment—we have choices= to make—decisions that affect our lives and our happiness. Sometimes we are tempted, or we are duped, or sometimes we’re just careless, and we make bad choices.

Most people in Germany thought Hitler was right when World War II began. Almost everybody in Noah’s d= ay thought they were right and he was wrong—till the flood began. = What we must understand is that God has a plan, and it includes an absolute standard of right and wrong to which you and I are accountable no matter what we think about it. Thumb our noses at God’s standards and it will bring a flood of problems our way. =

The great flood destroyed any doubts about God’s judgment on sin, and it = answered all questions about the value of faithfulness. God is true to His word, and how w= e live our lives does matter. <= /o:p>

So does this answer every question we have about good and evil and why things happen to people the way they do? No, I’m afraid it doesn’t. Many people in Jesus’ day be= lieved that every difficulty in life was the direct result of God’s judgment—but Jesus refuted that.&nbs= p; Bad things often happen to people who don’t deserve them, and = we are left to wonder why.

There are other times, however, when troubles come as a direct result of our sinf= ul actions. Think how it must ha= ve been for Noah and the handful of others on the ark as they heard the scream= s of those who were sinking under the drowning waters.

How sad it is for us to see people we care about making bad choices, running wi= th the wrong crowd, getting caught up in some sin that will eventually drag th= em down and take their lives away. God is patient, but sin does involve consequences.

Sometimes we may be tempted to think the price of faithfulness is too high, that it requires too much. Maybe we a= re missing out on something better by staying faithful to God. But Noah’s experience, along= with so many others, tells us otherwise.

It tells us that sin is serious—deadly serious. God sent that message through Noah= and many others.

Finally, when the time was right, God sent that message through His Son, Jesus Chris= t. Christ and His cross are the last c= hance we have to get the message that sin will be judged--that it must be atoned = for—that death is it’s price, and sin’s price will be paid by someone!

But the Gospel is that sin’s price HAS been paid—for all those who connect with Christ Jesus in faith and receive Him as Savior and Lord. Sin is forgiven, death is defeated= , lives are saved, and eternity is gained. More important than anything else in life is to make the connection = with Christ! Have you?<= /span>

The ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high an= d 20 cubits wide:

Two-thirds the length of a football field/Three-stories high.

Located in Schagen, Netherlands.