Righteous, Blameless, Walks With God (Genesis 6:9)

 

Monday, January 20, 2025

Psalm 48

Genesis 6

John 7:37-52

Righteous, Blameless, Walks With God (Genesis 6:9)

Everyone loves an old church. Even the heathen walks into them and can’t help but go silent and look around with a sense of wonder. If I could put forward a theory, it is that this happens because old churches are designed very specifically – that is, with the intention of communicating the gospel through design. If you go into an old church and look up, more often than not you might think the ceiling looks a little like the hull of an old wooden sailing ship. This is intentional: the church is the ark, floating safely through the flood, filled with souls that will be safe because they are held close to God in an unbreakable covenant relationship.

In the original ark, which we are starting to read about today, there was a man: Noah. He was the only reason there was an ark in the first place. And a covenant is between people, not things, and so God established his covenant with Noah, the man in the ark. By virtue of Noah’s righteousness, his blamelessness, and the fact he walked with God, the destruction of “all flesh with the breath of life” was to be followed up by a renewal: two of every living thing of all flesh, enough to repopulate the planet, along with Noah’s family, was to kick-start this renewal.

Without spoiling too much of the story (although I suspect most of us know how this story ends), Noah was not the promised Messiah that would crush the head of the serpent. But we see a shadow of the head-crusher in Noah. Jesus was perfectly righteous; he was without blame not only in his generation but in every generation; and no-one walks with God the way Jesus does. He is calling us now into his ark; all who would trust in him as Lord have a warm and dry bunk ready for them. The church, the body of people for whom Christ died, are safer in the ark of Christ than even the animals were in Noah’s.

Everyone in the church has a job to do. This is not a case where we can buy our ticket onto the ark and then just wait until the storms recede. To some have been given gifts of serving, others of teaching; some of encouragement, and others of giving. (Romans 12:7-8) Christ has bought our ticket on board; but it comes with the expectation that you will help run the ship.

Are you a member of a church body? What is your gift to help that church body? Are you using it to the fullest?

O covenant God: you have promised to rescue me from the destruction of evil purely by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Inspire my Spirit to live a full life in your service as a member of Christ’s family.