1. "In this world, there is something in the way that God has made us, that by our mere existence we bring God glory, by our mere being as he has made us to be."

2. "We are all made in the likeness of God in these respects. Physically and spiritually, with all of our abilities, with our knowledge, our righteousness, our holiness, our love. All of these reflect imperfectly but really God's own. We are perfect in parts, but not yet in degree."

3. "Friends, this is what God does. He gives us blessings in prayer of family, blessings of children. Every one of them bears God's image and has the potential to be perfected into the image of his son forever."

4. "We have to work against all that there is in this world that is against life. Torture, euthanasia, abortion, surgical mutilations, unjust wars, the execution of the innocent. All of these things are abhorrent to the God of the Bible. We are to fill this world with people made in God's image, all ultimately for his glory."

5. "Murder is any unjustified, deliberate killing of a person. And it is particularly offensive to God, whose image you attack and deface when you wrongly take a human life."

6. "As wide as the fears of rain and flood might be in a world after such a flood, so wide would God have Noah and all his descendants know of the promises of his covenant and of his mercy."

7. "How ironic that in our day some are trying to associate this sign of all signs with pride, with our ability to create our own identities, when it can only be seen and understood through the humility that our sins should evoke. Yet God's mercy delays. This is a sign not of our rightness to assert our identity, but it's a sign of God's patience as he withholds the judgment we've all deserved and as he awaits the repentance he invites."

8. "So on that first resurrection morning, Jesus himself in his resurrected state was like the rainbow, the sign of the covenant, which was to be seen and understood as proclaiming God's mercy and inviting our faith."

9. "Religious habits are, as sociologists and anthropologists tell us, the most deeply conservative, the most difficult to change in the entire culture of humanity. So what would account for this sudden change of some first century Jews from an observance which was so central to their faith?"

10. "He who knows your sins best shows mercy most. His mercy is not something he's ashamed of. He doesn't put it in occult signs or hidden off in a corner. No, he advertises it across the skies for all to see."

Observation Questions

1. According to Genesis 9:1, what specific command does God give to Noah and his sons? What is the significance of this command being repeated in verse 7?

2. In Genesis 9:2-3, what authority does God give humans over animals? How does this relate to Genesis 1:26-28?

3. What specific restriction does God place on eating meat in Genesis 9:4? What might be the purpose of this restriction?

4. From Genesis 9:5-6, what reason does God give for requiring capital punishment for murder? How does this connect to Genesis 1:27?

5. In Genesis 9:11, what specific promise does God make? How many times does God repeat this promise throughout the passage?

6. Looking at Genesis 9:13-16, what role does God say the rainbow will play in His covenant? Who is meant to see and remember this sign?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why might God have chosen to establish this covenant with "every living creature" (Genesis 9:10) rather than just with humans? What does this reveal about God's character?

2. How does the command to "be fruitful and multiply" connect to our bearing God's image? What implications might this have for how we view family and children?

3. What does the requirement for capital punishment in cases of murder tell us about how God views human life compared to animal life? How should this shape our understanding of human dignity?

4. Why might God choose to give a visible sign (the rainbow) of His covenant? What does this suggest about how God wants us to understand and remember His promises?

5. How does God's patience in this passage, demonstrated through His covenant promise, point forward to His ultimate plan of salvation through Christ?

Application Questions

1. When was the last time you thanked God for making you in His image? How might regularly reflecting on this truth change how you view yourself and others?

2. What specific steps can you take this week to better protect and honor the image of God in the vulnerable people around you (elderly, disabled, unborn, etc.)?

3. Think about a time when you saw a rainbow. How did you respond? How might understanding its covenant meaning change your response next time?

4. In what ways have you experienced God's patience in your own life? How should His patience shape your response to His offer of salvation?

5. Consider your roles and responsibilities (parent, worker, citizen, etc.). How can you better reflect God's image in each of these areas this week?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Psalm 8:3-8 - Explores humanity's unique position in creation and relationship to God, expanding on the dignity and authority given to humans in Genesis 9.

2. James 3:7-10 - Discusses how humans, made in God's image, should use their God-given abilities, particularly addressing how we speak about others made in His image.

3. Romans 8:18-25 - Describes creation's relationship to humanity and God's ultimate plan, providing context for understanding the scope of God's covenant with Noah.

4. Matthew 5:21-26 - Deepens our understanding of the sanctity of human life, showing how Jesus intensified the command against murder to address heart attitudes.

Sermon Main Topics

How Is God Glorified?

Glorifying God by What We Should Do: Populating, Prioritizing, and Protecting (Genesis 9:1–7)

Glorifying God by What God Will Do: His Patience and Plan (Genesis 9:8–17)

The Resurrection: Evidence and Invitation to Faith

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Detailed Sermon Outline

I wonder why you're here at church today.

Maybe it's to sing God's praises. Maybe someone who lives around you invited you. Maybe you wanted your neighbors to see you actually going to worship with God's people. Maybe you're personally curious. Or you were just satisfying a request made by a good friend or a family member on Easter.

Well, those are some good reasons you could be here today. In a Gallup poll just released last week, apparently only about 30% of Protestants here in the US attend church every week. So, if you regularly make a habit of this, you're in a minority. Most people don't do this.

According to the Bible, even the 70% of Protestants who don't regularly come to church, glorify God. And in fact, that's not just true of them, but it's true of the Roman Catholics. It's true of the Jews. It's true of the Muslims. It's true of the atheists in this world.

There is something in the way that God has made us that by our mere existence we bring God glory. By our mere being as He has made us to be.

Now there are some important senses in which by nature none of us glorify God as we ought to do. But all of us glorify God by the simple fact that He has made us like Himself, specifically to use traditional language here, the Bible's language, to bear His image. If you go back to the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis chapter 1, we read, so God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.

Now this isn't the whole story, of course. There's much more to it. People, each one made in God's image, made some disastrous choices from the very first. Most spectacularly, Adam and Eve. In their choice to disobey God, a kind of spiritual death came on them and on all their descendants.

That means all of us.

And since then, you can see it being worked out. It's worked out in the early chapters of Genesis in Cain's murder of his brother. In the violence that came to typify the whole earth. It was filling the earth. In Noah's day.

Open your Bibles right now, just open them. You don't have to know them well to find where we are. Just grab a Bible, front lid open, front cover, and we're in the very beginning there. We're in Genesis, we're looking at it. The large numbers are the chapter numbers, the small numbers are the verse numbers.

Look over at chapter 6.

We've been studying these chapters for the last few weeks, looking at the ancient world that then was between Adam and Abraham. Genesis chapter 6 verse 11, Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. Verse 13, and God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. I will destroy them with the earth. That's why the Lord would say He did what He did up in verse 5.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And then that's why the infamous flood happened in chapter 7. It came as God's judgment on those who had so misused His image made to tell the truth about God, but by our sin becoming, as it were, walking blasphemies. Disseminating disinformation and untruth about our Creator and what He's like, formally set up to glorify God, materially misusing their powers for wrongly self-centered, godless ends, being more concerned about their own glory than about God's. But even after the waters of the flood subsided in chapter 8, We read these words in chapter 8, verse 21.

We thought about them last week. The intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. The flood had expressed God's judgment of sinners. It had temporarily cleansed the planet, but it had not cleansed the hearts of the people on it. In the chapter we come to this morning, chapter 9 of Genesis, chapter 9, which you'll find there on pages 6 and 7.

We have what amounts to a new world that Noah and his family stepped out into. And the question we want to answer this morning for then and for today is a simple one. How is God glorified? How is God glorified? We want to look at what we should do to glorify God and what God told Noah that God would do.

And what he's still doing today. So stepping through our passage just to let you know how this is gonna go, all right? Two halves, verses 1 to 7, that's what God calls us to do. And verses 8 to 17, that's God telling us what he's gonna do. Verses 1 to 7, what we should do, we see it is by our populating, that's verses 1 and 7, our prioritizing, that's verses 2 to 4, and are protecting, that's verses 5 and 6.

Populating, prioritizing, protecting. And then second, what God will do, in verses 8 to 17, by God's patience and by His plan. Listen now as I read God's Word. 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 heaven and 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, 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, increase greatly 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, with the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as come 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 all 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.

So how is God glorified? First, by us, by populating. Did you see that in verses 1 and 7? Look at verse 1, and God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.' and then down in verse 7, and you be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it. We glorify God by multiplying because we people, human beings, are made in God's image.

God has a special concern with human beings like us, all of us, religious or not, young or old, Brazilian or Kenyan or American. Whether we are tall or short, whether we are ignorant or brilliant. It doesn't matter, whoever we are, we are all humans and in this sense we are all exactly and precisely the same in that we are all made in God's image. That is, we are relational beings. We are able to think, to reflect, to act, to know and be known, to be morally responsible in a way that animals are not.

This may seem like a funny point to you, but reflecting on these commands, it was clear to me that God was distinguishing between human beings and all the other animals. And he's doing it repeatedly in this passage in a way that I feel a burden that I need to say now more than I would have even 30 years ago.

Some of you, I know, are very attached to your pets. You're saying, Mark, I appreciate what you're saying about humans being so great, you know, made in God's image, but I think you need to maybe know my pet a little better. You know, if you understood more of my cat or my dog, you might have a higher impression of how it is that creatures can reflect God's own image. And I don't mean to get into an Easter morning argument with you about your pets, but I do just want to maintain this simple fact that however amazing your dog is, if you you go home today after church and he looks up at you and says, How was church today? That will change your relationship with your dog.

There is something different going on in our ability to speak to each other, to know each other, to understand, yes, imperfectly, but really each other. And there's something in that that reflects God himself. That's part of the image of God in us. We are all made in the likeness of God in these respects, physically and spiritually, with all of our abilities, with our knowledge, our righteousness, our holiness, our love, all of these reflect imperfectly but really God's own. As one theologian said, We are perfect in parts but not yet in degree.

We're built for either eternal blessedness or God's judgment. We are not now as good as we were created before the fall, but once born again, we are no longer as bad as we were born after the fall. And we're not as good as we shall be once we're glorified and with the Lord forever. Herman Bavinck once put it about the human being, he is the prophet who explains God and proclaims His excellencies. He is the priest who consecrates himself with all that is created to God as a holy offering.

He is the king who guides and governs all things in justice and rightness. And in all this he points to one who is a still higher and richer sense, the revelation and image of God, to him who is the only begotten of the Father and the firstborn of all creatures. Friends, it is this image of God in us that's the reason that we bring glory to God by marrying and having children. The blessings of it, being able to see and know that all people are made male and female by God's good design. That he is glorified in the union of husband and wife, and even in the existence of the children that come from that union.

Young people, many of you will know my wife Connie, because though she is not very visible in these services, she's very visible with kids. So many of you will have been through classes taught by her. Did you know that she is the answer to my prayers? I became a Christian as a teenager, and literally every day in the morning, I would pray for my spouse. I didn't know who it was yet, but I prayed that the Lord would give me a good spouse.

And I prayed for her day and the Lord would bless her. Connie is the answer to those prayers. We have two adult children, Nathan and Annie. We prayed for our children from the time we were married. Annie and Nathan are the answer to those prayers.

And any children the Lord gives them beyond, I could keep going. You see friends, this is what God does. He gives us blessings in prayer of family blessings of children. Psalm 127:3 says, Children are a heritage from the Lord, because every one of them bears God's image and has the potential to be perfected into the image of his Son forever. One of the aspects of our congregation's life I'm so thankful for is how many people work with kids all the time.

Do you know right now there are like A lot of people right over there working with children for the good of the children and for your good as well. That's going on all the time here. Kids, when you're with other kids in the playground or you're at school, do you ever notice how big or how small other people's families are?

Do you know God has given you the exact number of brothers and sisters he wants you to have?

He cares about each family. He knows what he's doing with the brothers and sisters that he gives or he withholds.

Parents, I pray that God will help you to trust him even as you glorify yourself in giving yourself to the consuming task of caring for every child.

That God commits your care. And not all kids consume you the same amount. I was talking to one of our children recently as an adult, talking to him about them having more children, and he was saying how consuming he felt caring for one child was, this particular child. And I said, Tell me about it. Your sister took us 10 times more energy than you did.

You know, I understand different kids are different, but all of them are gifts from the Lord. All of them he entrusts to specific parents for reasons, ultimately for his glory. We have to work against all that there is in this world that is against life: torture, euthanasia, abortion, surgical mutilations, unjust wars, the execution of the innocent, all of these things are abhorrent to the God of the Bible. We are to fill this world with people made in God's image, all ultimately for His glory.

But there's another way here we are to glorify God, not only by populating the world with people made in His image, but also by prioritizing them. That's the second point here in this first half. Look also there, verses 2 to 4.

The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens, and 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. Let me just say right now, I do not know the answer to the most common question I got this week. I do not know if this is when people were first allowed to eat meat.

Verse 3 can sound like that, but then people also wonder, well, Abel, back in chapter 4, he was keeping sheep and even sacrificing the firstborn, bringing fat offerings specifically. Normally later under Moses, that would mean that the rest of the animal would be eaten by those bringing the offerings. So we don't know if this is the first time people were allowed to eat but we do know that God clearly and directly allows for the deaths of animals to serve the life of people. God clearly and specifically allows for the deaths of animals to serve the life of people. He shows that there is a great difference between the two.

Humans are made in the image of God in a way that animals are not. There is a distinction of humans alone being image bearers of God over against all other forms of life on this earth. So today when so many people in urban centers of the Western world speak of their pets like parents used to speak of their children, I think we Christians need to be alert to this. And please do not hear this as an anti-animal sentiment. The book of Proverbs sets up ants as a moral exemplar for us.

You know, caring for your animals is part of caring for yourself and your family, according to Proverbs 27. Or Proverbs 12:10 says, Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast. Moses specifically forbid muzzling the ox while it's treading out the grain. That is, Moses said, you, got to allow the ox to eat some while he's doing this work.

Why do people seem to be more concerned, some people seem to be more concerned about animal rights than human rights? Or why does one of the rights some people seem very concerned about is the right to abort infants? It's as if there's an effacing of the difference between humans and animals. You lower the rights according to one distinctly and you raise the rights of the others. Friends, I think God is clear in His Word.

He has made us specifically to reflect His glory uniquely, and that is to be reflected in our practices, in our laws, in our lives together. The subordinating of all animal life to all human life sets a very different signal than we get from some ethicist today. God, the Creator, has given all animals to us specifically. He's called us to use them for our own nourishing all birds and fish, all creeping things and beasts of the earth. Verse four really enforced a respect for life.

Though God was clearly giving humans permissions to use animals for food, they could not be thoughtless or cruel in the way they used them. So the killing needed to be deliberately separated from the consumption of them as food. That's the point of not having the blood in them. It's not fresh. You're not just, you know, eating the thing.

You're separating out the killing almost with a respect for its life. And there's much discussion of this later. Jesus taught in Mark 7, it's not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but it's what comes out of his heart. Christians discuss this in Acts 10 because of a vision gives to Peter saying all foods are clean. And then in Acts 15, the Christians discuss then how can they best live in light of this.

You can find more about this reasoning in Romans chapter 14.

But this blood that they were being very respectful of, it was because it was to have another meaning for the people of God. We read in Hebrews 9:22, Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. But such animal blood was pointing toward a more effective sacrifice to come. Because as Hebrews 10:4 says, It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Now friends, we have confidence to enter God's presence today as we've been singing.

Because of the blood of Christ that he spilled for us. So friends, if you want to know the basic message of Christianity, that's it. That the Lord Jesus Christ is God's gift to us, His only Son given, so that He, having lived a perfect life, having no reason ever to experience death, would experience death as a sacrifice in substitute in place of all of us who forfeited our lives by our sin. And he calls us to turn and trust in him. God raised him from the dead as we celebrate this very day in order to show that he had accepted that sacrifice.

And he calls us to trust in him for forgiveness of our sins. This reverence for blood was pointed toward that future blood that was to be spilt for us. But still today, whenever we eat animals meat, we are distinguishing animals from humans in the very way that God here taught Noah and his family to do. And so we glorify God by by prioritizing the people made in His image. This is a way of honoring God.

So we glorify God by propagating more of these creatures made in God's image, by prioritizing them, and third, by protecting them. Look here in verses 5 and 6. 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 sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image. You see the clear distinction in the Lord is making here. He's teaching Noah to make between the animals and people. Animal death is justified for the sake of human life. That's verse 3.

But now the Lord makes it just as clear here that the lifeblood of humans is not to be spilled, either by animals or other people. Murder is any unjustified, deliberate killing of a person. And it is particularly offensive to God whose image you attack and deface when you wrongly take a human life. Verses 5 and 6 here are not teaching a complete nonviolent pacifism. They speak of requiring a reckoning, an accounting.

Not just ultimately to God, but even by man. The three lines of verse 6 lay this out. Whoever sheds the blood of man, this has in mind a person who's been wrongly killed by another person, and that something shall be done to that killer. Look at the second line. His blood be shed.

His blood, by man shall his blood be shed. So the life is in the blood, we've just been told. So this wrong killing will now cry out for another killing, the execution of the killer. And this is not talking about a killing brought about by God causing a worldwide flood, or by God striking somebody down. No, this is God authorizing humans to take the life of another human who is guilty of wrongly killing someone.

So right here is an authorized taking of human life. The murderer forfeits his right to his own life. And notice the reason for this.

Of verse 6, For God made man in his own image. Do you see how that's clear and consistent throughout these first verses? That's why the call to multiply, propagate, that's why the distinction between animals and people, that's why God so protects human life from murder. Because people, every person, is made in God's own image.

Image. That's what we see here. We all bear his divine image. So it is the very worth of the one wrongly killed as an image bearer of God himself that cries out for a redressing of the murder. As the Lord said after the first murder of Cain, a murder by Cain, the voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.

And it seems that the only sufficient redress for wrongly taking a person's life is for that murderer to have his own life taken. And to be clear, the man who rightly takes the murderer's life does not forfeit his own life, unlike the murderer whose life he took. The second man is a killer, but not a murderer. He has taken a human life, but not for his own private purposes. Mortal violence is only authorized by God for those who wrongly kill those made in His image.

Never for other crimes, particularly never for crimes of property or theft. One of the things that distinguishes the Old Testament law of Moses from other ancient Near Eastern laws is how capital punishment is never used as punishment for property theft, though it is in so many other ancient Near Eastern cultures. Human life is to be valued uniquely. Now if that's the burden of this passage, I wonder how you in your role in life or in the job God has given you right now can work to encourage properly to properly reverence human life. Maybe you can work to make sure that the wrongly accused are not killed.

Perhaps you can work against popular support for the wrong medical ending of human life. Perhaps you can befriend those who you're at school with and help them think better. Think through the morality and ethics of what is appropriate respect for human life. Some of you who work with our criminal justice system can consider the implications for such teaching in jurisdictions that have no capital punishment to protect human life. Others can consider the implications for such teaching in jurisdictions which do have capital punishment but seem too often to kill not the guilty but merely the accused.

We can see in Genesis 18 God's reluctance to punish even a great deal of wickedness in Sodom if it would mean punishing any innocent people as well. Wrestle with this and then try to come up with better ways to protect those made in God's image. This also has very direct implications for those of us who serve in the military or in the police. No human command ever moves responsibility to obey God. We see this repeatedly from Peter in Acts chapters 4 and 5.

We must obey God rather than man. The whole area of military ethics is important, and those of us who are not directly personally involved are involved, if nothing else, by paying taxes. So we all make it possible. So thank you for your important work. And work to make this known that humans are special.

Know that you have our gratitude for the work that you do, even for your work for peace and safety of innocence. My non-Christian friend, we want you to know that we, your Christian neighbors and friends, we care about justice. It's in that word right there in verse 5, Reckoning. Said twice, did you notice it? But we know as different as we may be from each other or from you, the main thing we need isn't justice, it's mercy.

So our question is, how can we justly obtain the mercy that we need? That's the question that we would press on you today. This weekend, all the meditation we're having here in a Christian church on murder and the shedding of blood can't help but turn our minds to the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf. A couple of nights ago, Bobby led us in meditating on how we all really are in the place of the murderer, dying a justified death next to Christ who was innocently suffering, but he was choosing to do so. He was the only truly innocent one, dying for countless guilty ones so we could find our hope in him.

And he shared with us one of George Herbert's 65 stanzas of his poem the Sacrifice. If you've not read it, I encourage you to get a copy and read it this afternoon. In these 65 stanzas, Herbert narrates Christ, really, walking us through his own passion and death. And each stanza concluding simply, Was ever grief like mine.

He helps the reader to appreciate the magnitude of Christ's suffering on our behalf. He begins, O all ye who pass by, whose eyes and mind to worldly things are sharp, but to me blind, to me who took eyes that I might you find, was ever grief like mine? And then he goes through every depredation that Christ endured from His being lashed to His garments being divided. He rehearses, Betwixt two thieves I spend My utmost breath, as He that for some robbery suffereth. Alas, what have I stolen from youm?

Death was ever grief like mine. Friends, our value already set by our Creator at being made in His own image, that day at Calvary was reset when we had, as it were, morally spent ourselves. It was reset to the value of the life of the Son of God, the one who is the image of the invisible God. Consider the significance of Christ's death. It means that forgiveness has already been purchased, even for murderers like the one next to Him.

Who believed. Dear church family, I pray that God will use us as we are, lawyers and teenagers, workmen and teachers, retirees and uncles, parents and policemen, reporters and speechwriters, to defend those made in the image of God, but who are themselves, in their own circumstances, defenseless. I praise God for those who bring God glory by showing the dignity of those made in His image to those who are of diminished capacities. The way so many of you in your family or your neighborhood, as you care for elderly neighbors, those whose memories are gone, as you care for other children or those children particularly with special needs.

I praise God for the way youe reflect a dignity of human life that itself speaks to the image of God in every person. What honor your do to God as yous love and care for these people? These actions, large and small, show a love for the God in whose image these people are made. So people are made in God's image. And we glorify Him, we honor Him when we populate, when we prioritize, and when we protect, as the Lord teaches Noah here.

And all of this is still true for us today. But God also teaches Noah not just what people should do, but what God Himself decided to do, and that's the second half of our passage. We see that, and we notice here first, God's patience. Look at this beginning in verse 8. Genesis chapter 9, beginning verse 8.

Then God said to Noah, '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 all 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. Back in chapter 6 verse 18, the Lord had promised to establish His covenant with Noah.

And now here in chapter 9, the Lord does just that, His covenant, and that's this word He uses again and again in verses 9 and 11 and 12 and 13 and 15 and 16 and 17. This covenant is a promise. It's an agreement. It's a guarantee. He gives Noah and all of us who've come since him no active part in it except to see the sign and know its significance and believe it and rely on it.

There's nothing that we are called to do in order to fulfill it. Look, unlike the more religious covenants that were later on established with Abraham and Moses and of course supremely through Jesus Christ as we considered at the table just on Friday night past. This covenant here in Genesis 9 is more of a unilateral declaration by God to all of what He would do. And he calls it here in verses 9 and 15, My covenant. Now I wonder, If you've read this passage of the Bible before, kids, have you ever wondered where rainbows come from?

Well, this kind of tells you that. The rainbows may have been there before, but it tells you why they're there. It tells you the significance of the rainbow. The rainbow is here specifically, not merely because, you know, a spectrum of light is refracted through moisture, but it's here because God wanted a sign. To show us.

The word translated bow here in verses 13 and 14 and 16 is the same word that Jacob uses in the last word in chapter 48 of Genesis, meaning a bow that's used in battle, like a bow and arrow. And here in this bow that is to appear after rain in the clouds, this bow is laid aside by its very form. It's not pointed downward drawn with an arrow ready to launch at us. But at ease, it's hung up and it's pointed up, as the Lord said in chapter 8 verse 22, while the earth remains. Like I say, the rainbows may have always been there, but even if it is true, they were now invested with a new meaning, like the supper that night with Jesus took on a new meaning as He explained it to His disciples.

Oh, my friends, don't mistake God's kindness and His mercy in this delay. He has not become indifferent to any sin. He is simply declaring that He will not bring immediate temporal punishments on us for them. There is no danger that any sin of yours or mine will ever finally go without reckoning. It either has been reckoned and paid in Christ or will be judged by God for it finally.

How can a good God show such universal mercy, this delay for all people, wicked or good, religious or not, trusting Yahweh or never having heard of Him? It is God's confidence in the coming justice of the cross of Christ that allows His temporary mercy to all here in these verses. God's restraint here is in no way based on your goodness on what I've deserved or what we've deserved. Now, remember last week we were thinking in chapter 8 verse 21 about the imaginings of the heart are evil from youth up. This is all mercy.

God has a right twice over to take our lives, both as our Creator, He gave us our lives, He made us initially in His image, and yet we've forfeited it by our sins. And again, too, as our judge, as the one who can evaluate us for how we've lived. Yet he daily shows persevering mercy to all who live. All of us. Each day are another example of God's mercy.

And this is mercy that God wants known. Isn't that interesting? I mean, that's why he gives us a visible sign of it. This is why God verbally interprets his visible sign to know his eyes and explains its meaning, because God gets glory and honored by his acts of mercy being known and celebrated, just like we're doing here in this public service today, as we do at the beginning of each new week the Lord gives us. Saints, isn't it staggering to consider that he who knows your sins best shows mercy most?

His mercy is not something he's ashamed of. He doesn't put it in occult signs or hidden off in a corner. No, he advertises it across the skies for all to see. He wants people to understand and know as wide as the fears of rain and flood might be in a world after such a flood. So wide would God have Noah and all his descendants know of the promises of his covenant and of his mercy.

Friends, there were only so many arks on the side of Ararat that could be seen. But these rainbows, they could be every place where the threatening rains had come. This sign of His mercy was merely an early foreshadowing of His mercy and grace that God would provide to justify sinners like us by His gift of grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Friend, do you see what Christ's cross could mean for you today? Could you imagine your sins being passed over justly by God in his mercy? Perhaps you're here this morning and you're as fearful as those ancients would have been when the storm clouds first gathered. After the flood waters had receded. Would it happen again?

Would God again judge us like that? Is it time for another just reckoning? But now God says when they looked up at the heavy clouds, they could see the sign of God's mercy that would allay their fears. How ironic that in our day some are trying to associate this sign of all signs with pride. With our ability to create our own identities when it can only be seen and understood through the humility that our sins should evoke, yet God's mercy delays.

This is a sign not of our rightness to assert our identity, but it's a sign of God's patience as he withholds the judgment we've all deserved. And as he awaits the repentance he invites, Second Peter 3:9 would be a good text for you to write next to that in your margin. Second Peter 3:9, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

And this brings us to what else God will do. God not only is patient, But God has a plan. You see it right there in verses 15 and 16. God says that he will remember his covenant, just like we saw back in chapter 8, verse 1, God remembered Noah. It's not that God was forgetting, but it's the kind of anthropomorphic language that we've seen in the Bible, God describing himself in terms of human actions.

So when the world deserves to be deluged for our sins, but isn't, that's expressed here as God remembering. God will not exercise His right to take all our lives immediately. Not because of our own goodness, but because of His mercy. So even as the rain reminds us of God's power, so the rainbow reminds us of God's resolve to restrain His justice's requirements of us, as we've observed ultimately our lives are all forfeited by our sins. And our only hope lies in the protection given to us by Christ's death and resurrection.

Who promised his disciples, whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. When asked what bread he was talking about, he pointed out that it was himself who came down from heaven. At what it meant to feed on him, He said up in verse 47 of John 6, Whoever believes has eternal life. So on that first resurrection morning, Jesus Himself, in His resurrected state, was like the rainbow, the sign of the covenant, which was to be seen and understood as proclaiming God's mercy.

And inviting our faith. Friend, if you're not normally in a Christian church, I just want you to hear that the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is no fiction. It is as real as the rainbow in the sky. And the evidences are too many to rehearse here, but let me invite you to speak to friends you came with or to passers-by at the door with questions. We'll have copies of this book that Ryan mentioned, Val Grieve, Evidence of the Resurrection.

We're happy to give you a copy if you want to read that and then talk to us later. But I just want to share with you a few things that were persuasive to me and have been to others before we conclude that Jesus really did rise from the dead. And the most fundamental witness is this. Five first century writers, Paul, John, Luke, Luke, Mark, and Matthew. All of them claim to have been witnesses themselves or to have been recording the accounts of eyewitnesses.

I'll tell you a second one. The idea of the resurrection is not one which the disciples apparently had understood. They weren't sitting around hoping for it. They didn't seem to understand it when Jesus taught it. It doesn't seem to be the kind of thing they would have cooked up.

A third one, Jesus had said that He would rise from the dead. And while that may not seem very weighty in itself, it is an amazing way for somebody to talk when he's young, kind of popular.

Number four, a guard had been assigned to secure the tomb in case the disciples would come and steal the body, something I don't think they were likely to do anyway. But when two of Jesus' female disciples went to find the tomb, they found the guard gone.

What was going on there? Number five, two disciples then claimed to have seen the tombstone rolled away, something far too large for them to have done, and to have seen and spoken with angels and then with Jesus himself and even to have touched him. I'll tell you a sixth piece of evidence, the tomb was empty. Jesus' body was not there, and this was never refuted. Number seven, even the fact that the first two witnesses are recorded as women is in a very innocent way some evidence for the truth of this account because if it were manufactured, they would never have had women put down as their primary witnesses.

Women weren't allowed to bear witness in Jewish courts normally.

An eighth piece of evidence for the truth of the resurrection. You know the interesting little detail presented that the body of Jesus was gone, but the grave clothes were intact. They weren't like wadded up in a corner. They were all exactly there, even the face cloth. But yet he was gone.

Not something anybody could accomplish in any way that we would normally understand.

A ninth reason. The authorities could not produce the body. Surely an easy way to squelch this would be just produce the body. But the very fact they had to suggest that the body had been stolen shows that the tomb where Jesus was known to have been laid was also known to be empty. Number 10, in the process these guards themselves were witnesses to the events.

And that's why some money changed hands and the chief priests gave to the soldiers for some reason that Matthew records. An eleventh reason over a forty-day period after the crucifixion, Jesus appeared to many people who weren't expecting Him.

A twelfth piece of evidence. Jesus wasn't just seen, but in Matthew 28, Matthew reported that some doubted, again a note of authenticity, which we might expect to be absent if this were just being made up.

Thirteenth piece of evidence, notice the transformation in the disciples. Peter alone is a tremendous example that something happened. He went from dashed hopes to death-defying faith. Liars make lousy martyrs.

Number fourteen, a denial of the resurrection does not figure in early anti-Christian apologetics. It's like they knew not to even bother going there, because too many people knew that happened. Number fifteen, many scholars who have looked into this suggest that actually the most weighty arguments for the resurrection is the change of the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. Religious habits are, as sociologists and anthropologists tell us, the most deeply conservative, the most difficult to change in the entire culture of humanity. So what would account for this sudden change of some first century Jews from an observance which was so central to their faith?

Finally, the last one I'll give to you now, I'm just giving you 16 this morning, you can figure out more over lunch. There is the simple fact that the historical origin of Christianity requires some explanation. While this is not evidence for the resurrection of Christ in and of itself, it is a factor which forces us to seriously engage the question. Friends, that's to those of you who are visiting. Most of us sitting here this morning are members.

Most of us know this. We can sing the words of our last song. Open up your bulletins right now on page 15. Musicians, go on and come up here. Page 15.

See, the stone is rolled away. Behold, the empty tomb. Hallelujah. God be praised.

He's risen from the grave. Oh, that rugged cross, my salvation, where your love poured out over me. Now my soul cries out, hallelujah, praise and honor unto thee. Let's stand and sing.