In this passage, we see a different Abram than we saw in Genesis 12. In light of Abram’s failure to trust in God, we see him here walk by faith once again in God’s promises, which is good news for all of us who, like Abram, wrestle with trusting and distrusting God and His promises.
In this passage, we see Abram's obedience to the call of God to go to the Promised Land, but then we also see Abram's failure to trust God to fulfill His promises. Yet we can have confidence that nothing and no one can derail God's promises, not even God's people.
Though Abram seems like an unlikely candidate to re-establish God's kingdom on the earth, God will nonetheless be faithful to bring the nations back to Himself. And we have been invited into this unfolding drama. Jesus is inviting His disciples to reclaim the world for the kingdom of God and has empowered us by His Spirit to do it.
At the tower of Babel, we see man's attempt to ascend to God, and we see God's gracious condescension to man. God's scattering of defiant and self-reliant humanity looks forward to Pentecost where people from every nation would hear the good news about Jesus Christ in their own language.
The God who created all people has a plan to redeem all people. And by God’s grace, we have a part to play in God’s redemption of the nations.
In this passage, we see that sin is alive and well in the new world. But we also see the hope of Jesus Christ. Though we are all by nature like Noah and Ham, by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, God regards us as righteous.
God promises to sovereignly preserve the earth and to never again destroy the world with a flood. But what does God require of His creatures in return? In this sermon, we look at God's unconditional and universal and everlasting covenant, and how it points us to a new and better covenant through Jesus Christ.
In the flood account, we see how infinitely holy God is and how breathtakingly offensive our sin is to Him. Yet even though God judges sin and wickedness, in His grace, He always saves a remnant to continue His kingdom on the earth.
In this passage, we see just how far mankind has plummeted from their privileged position, as “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” But we also see how, in the midst of all the wickedness on the earth, there is hope: “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” Noah points forward to Jesus who absorbed the floodwaters of God’s wrath, so that, by faith in Jesus Christ, it is not we who are blotted out, but rather, it is our sin that is blotted out.
In this genealogy of the godly line of the offspring of the woman, we see the faithfulness of God, the sting of death, and the hope of eternal life. When we receive the good news of Jesus Christ by faith, then one day we will be no more, for God will take us to be with Him forever.