Flood - Erosion of Humanity and the Heart of God

Wednesday, September 30th

For the next three days I want us to discus, what should get our attention?

Read Genesis 6:5-13- 5The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. 9This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully 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 God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

What should get our attention? What did you notice about the repletion of words? What did you notice with phrases that got your attention?

The first thing I want to draw our attention to is the state of humanity. God saw the “ra”, the wickedness of the human race.

Think back to Genesis 2, God gave the commandment to trust him, and not eat from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil it has progressively gotten worse. Genesis 3 is about the fall of mankind, Genesis 4 is about the fall of family, and now Genesis 6 is the fall of society. What God now sees is the opposite of what he desired and created from Genesis 1.
God saw that humanity was multiplying evil, multiplying evil towards one another and multiplying evil across the land. Some translations say the land was corrupt, ruined, or destroyed.

This passage reveals that evil does not arrive suddenly -- it multiplies. Goodness erodes slowly, quietly, one compromise at a time. God looked at the world he had called good and saw it ruined.

The theme I want you to wrestle with is this; God’s heart is grieved when there is an erosion of goodness because it leads to a flood of evil. Reread that.

Folks, this isn’t about morality, it’s paying attention to the areas of our life that are eroding away. That’s why we pay attention to our thoughts (take every thought captive- 2 Corinthians 10:5) or how Jesus is always getting our attention to pay attention to the inside of the cup, not just the outside.

Or let me ask it like this? Are you imitators of Christ or a mirage of “good enough”?
Think about it, a mirage looks appealing, looks like it could satisfy, but then it fades away when you get a closer look because it was just a mirage, had no substance. Have we minimized our faith journey to a mirage of “good enough” or are we imitators of Christ?

Ephesians 4:17-5:3- Here’s the message version of a few of those verses. 30 Don’t grieve God. Don’t break his heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for himself. Don’t take such a gift for granted. 31-32 Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you. 1-2 Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.
Examine your life honestly today. Where is goodness quietly eroding?