Park the Ark and Get Out, it’s Time to Serve

Picture Courtesy of Mike Savad. He made this picture!  Thank you Sir!  https://www.MikeSavad.com

1 Corinthians 7:22-24

For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men. Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.

This morning, in search for what God would have for me, I read the story of Noah and his sons in Genesis 9, and I’m drawn in to the statement that “Ham is the father of Canaan.” So off I go to search the significance of that, only to get lead down another trail, and another until I find myself in 1 Cor. 7, all pointing back to the calling of man, that divine purpose for which God has intended.

Following the flood, Noah was a husbandman, a man of the soil, a farmer; not exactly the role you would expect of someone that God had just used to spare mankind. But knowing God, I would assume that that’s exactly what Noah wanted to do. He’d been under the pressure to perform, he’d built the ark, preached the gospel, gathered the critters and set sail on the first Gilligan adventure, he likely just wanted to spend retirement tending to the grapes. It was his turn to rest; and in so doing he got carried away and fell to sin in the very thing he’d been called to do.

The Calling 

Not to be taken lightly and certainly something that should be prayed for and through. I at first believed that in the days of Noah a calling was much more certain and the relationship with God much closer, after all the distraction of the day in comparison to now would seem minimal, although that is obviously not the case. God wiped out an entire generation of people because of their wickedness with the exception of Noah’s family, distraction must have gotten pretty deep. So how did Noah keep his focus?

He served. Not on a fancy platform before the congregation of the Lord, but in the construction and farming industry all while preaching the gospel. A humble, hardworking man would be my impression.

The Covenant

God’s promise to Noah and his family:

Genesis 9:14-15

And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

How comforting and beautiful must that rainbow have been for Noah and his family to understand that God would never again destroy their generation. They were now left to carry on without the sinful distractions that had plagued the generations before. One would have thought that the lesson would have been learned about the consequences of sin, and yet just a few verses later we find Ham resorting bfaack to the nature that is within man and shamed his father and reaped consequences upon his own children. We really never learn do we?

The Curse of the Consequence

From Adam to the flood there was sin. From the flood to modern day there is sin, hallelujah for the promise! Else we’d not have made it one generation after the flood. Just as Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, so do we; but that doesn’t change the calling. God’s purpose for our life may be a whisper in the midst of the noise around us, but it’s evident in the joy we’ll find in doing it.

My purpose is to write and share the gospel, I know that because there is nothing more that I find greater joy in. I don’t know how God’s going to pay my bills, but I know that regardless of what I have to do for that to happen, I cannot fail to continue to do what God has called me to do, else there will be consequences.  Noah continued to follow God, I’m sure he preached and worshipped the Lord at every opportunity, but following the flood Noah’s calling was to be husbandman to God’s land.

I know this message spoke to my own heart this morning about the need to serve where you are. When the ark landed, Noah got out of the boat and began to serve as a humble farmer. That’s your grandfather. Follow in his footsteps.