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No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

When you encounter God, you change. For Abram that meant a new name, but it also meant following the Lord. He would become the father of many nations, and so he is. All those who call upon the name of Jesus are heirs of Abraham’s promise. This everlasting covenant was made absolutely rock solid by the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Have you trusted in Jesus?

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him

Some might think 75 years old is well past time to leave your father’s house, but this was the time God told Abraham to leave. He didn’t know where God was sending him, but he went. That’s what faith is, not knowing exactly, but still acting. Faith isn’t just something in our heads, it’s what we do. God’s promise to Abraham is still part of God’s gathering for himself a people. Through Abraham all the world was blessed. All those who follow Jesus, are children of Abraham. You are blessed, if you know Jesus. Choose to be blessed today.

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.

God blessed his new people, even though it wasn’t a very small group. He have them a job to do, “fill the earth.” Why? Because God was, and still is, gathering for himself a people to worship him. This is why we are to “go and make disciples of all nations.” As they were told to “go” so too we have the same command, spiritual reproduction. Noah’s family was given authority, and so it is with the Great Commission, all authority in heaven and on earth was given to Jesus and it is he who sends us out.

This verse is also great for all the vegetarians out there. God bless you if you don’t eat meat, but don’t abstain from meat because you think it’s somehow more holy to do so. Yes in Genesis 1:30 God said he have “every green plant for food. and it was so” meaning Adam and Eve were vegetarians, but God also told Noah and his descendants they should have a barbecue. Just like Adam and Eve were given all the plants, we are given all the (clean) animals. This is a deepening and expansion of God’s provision for his people. This goes even further through the New Covenant in that we are now given all animals, nothing you eat makes you unclean. God is good, he is always doing more, deeper, better… culminating in the best ever, Jesus Christ! Do you know him?

But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

God is always gathering for himself a people, so he is constantly saving us from ourselves. God had a desire to make for himself a group to worship him, not like the angels do by their very nature, but through a covenant. He was always connecting with humanity and mankind was always breaking our relationship. Noah represents a major point in this salvation story of God’s expanding and deepening covenant to save his people. He affirms and establishes his covenant with Noah and Noah believes. This is not a fairy tail, it’s true.

It’s amazing to me that the latest genomic evidence is that our mitochondrial mother “Eve” appears to go back further in the genealogical record than does chromosomic “Adam.” Most people look at this evidence and say “see, the Bible is a myth and you can’t take the story of Adam and Eve seriously, our common female ancestor lived thousands of years before our earliest common male ancestor” This is a criticism from people who don’t know the Bible very well and would be exactly what one would expect if the Bible were, in fact, absolutely true! Noah and his biological sons all went onto the ark. Noah is our earliest male ancestor according to the Bible, not Adam. However, Noah’s wife, and his three daughters-in-law all had different parents. Thus, our common female ancestor would predate Noah by something like thousands of years, depending on how diverse these girls were.

I’m constantly amazed by how confident people are when they come out with new evidence to “refute” the Bible, and it always turns out to affirm what the Bible has said for thousands of years. God’s word is true, and you know what, it’s not just so we get our history correct. He is still in the covenant business.

The New Covenant (as Paul calls it) came through Jesus’ blood. Though God spoke to our spiritual ancestors in various ways, he has spoken finally and for all in his son Jesus Christ. Do you know him? You too can be saved while all others are taken away to judgment. Trust Jesus today.

…sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.

Adam and Eve sinned. As Paul tells us in Romans 5, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” This means we are all in trouble because of our great, great, great, great… ancestor. We’ve all inherited a “human nature” which not only is bent towards sin, it inevitably leads us to sin. All of us are, thus, “condemned” (Rom 5:18) because we will all sin. But there is hope! Jesus Christ came and paid the penalty for our sins so that those who trust in Him will have His righteousness exchanged for our unrighteousness (Rom 5:19). So now, we who are forgiven, must rule over our sin. It is no longer master over us, Jesus is our Lord. Have you thanked Him for this gift lately? Hope to see you Sunday…