The Promise Keeper Who Provides
Genesis 8:20-9:1-17
St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes
January 26, 2025
Throughout our building we find symbols that remind us of God’s provisions. The Jesus painting in the overflow area represents Jesus praying in the Garden. The church bell is a symbol of the ringing of salvation. The large timer support beams are reminder of strength and stability, based on the hymn “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” The cement slab near the stairs to the Sunday School rooms depicts Christ AKA: The Rock of Ages. The PX symbol of the slab is made of the first initials of the name Jesus Christ in Greek – Chi (X) Rho (P).
The cross over the altar made of wood from Germany is Christ’s invitation that all who are tired and heave burdened can come to him, and that rest can be found on him. The cross located in the overflow area in front of old pieces of lumber left over from the building of the church is emblematic of the old rugged cross against a background of a broken and divided world and a splintered church, which only the cross and what it stands for can heal and make us whole.
The high ceiling is covered with birch wood from Finland; the ends of the ceiling contain hundreds of different angels which give it a spiral effect, symbolic of the songs and prayers to God from us ascending to Heaven, and the glass reflection represents the beauty of God’s holiness descending upon the congregation. Symbols are important.
Today, I invite us to focus on how Christ has provided for us and I would like for us to consider the rainbow and never again think the same way of the rainbow because of the huge significance in scriptures.
Last week we talked about the Adamic Covenant in Genesis 3, the fall and salvation. God our promise keeper provided redemption for humankind. We talked about the “eucatastrophy,” how God has the capacity to turn things around and bring good our of bad.
A covenant is more than a contract, more than an agreement, it is an unbroken promise that God makes. Whether we keep our end of the deal or not is immaterial, God keeps his commitment to us. We’ll see how God pulls off his covenant with His people. He does this in three different ways:
1) He provides for our needs
2) He provides justice
3) He provides peace
I. He provides for our needs,
Genesis 8:20-22
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[a] 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.”
The story of Noah’s ark is not a cute story of little animals walking into the ark. It is a story of God’s wrath on the evil he saw on earth. Today’s story is a powerful reminder of God’s holiness and God’s grace. If there is anyone here today who does not have Christ in his/her heart, today is the day for you to find cover and protection in Christ.
What did God see after Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil?
God saw wickedness.
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. Genesis 6:5
God saw violence.
Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. Gensis 6:11
God made provisions.
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. Genesis 6:18
As we look at the great narrative in Scripture, we see a pattern: creation, fall, redemption and restoration.
God promises security and order in our lives. Obedience to God brings security, disobedience to God brings chaos.
II. He provides justice to His people, Genesis 9:1-7
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, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
This is a promise that the scales of justice will play out in the world.
God gave us his commandments for our good. For every negative command, there are two positive promises: protection and provision.
What does God require of us?
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8
God promises justice and his ultimate justice is found in the person of Jesus Christ our Savior.
It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Romans 3:26
III. He provides peace to His people,
Genesis 9:8-17
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.”
After the rain and the storm collide, we see a rainbow, a sign of God’s power and peace. Consider the shape of the rainbow, fixed from east to west or horizontally, not vertically. Think about the bow and arrow. A person who is hunting, places the bow vertically then she pulls the arrow and discharges the arrow forward. The “bow” or “rainbow” is positioned differently, the arrow points toward God.
God hung his bow in the sky as a reminder that his wrath is not coming to us that his covenant is fulfilled in Jesus. That the arrow of his wrath is no longer coming to us, but instead while we were yet sinners, Christ came and died for us, took on the bow, went to the cross, his side was pierced.
We had no way out, so Christ was sent to rescue us, to take on the wrath of God for us and redemption is made for us so that you and I will forever remember what we read in Romans 8:1,
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Praise be to God. This is the word of the Lord.