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Well, good morning.
There we go.
If you got your Bible, is going to open them up to Genesis, chapter five.
We're going to start here in verse 28.
We're not quite done with our genealogy that we looked at last week.
As you turn there, I want to point out a couple of things.
First off, we are taking the Lord's Supper at the end of the service.
And so if you did not get the elements to partake in that with us, feel free to right now get up, head back to the back, grab those.
If you're a first time guest here, we'll talk about this toward the end as well.
But if you're not a member of Willow Ridge Church, you are still invited to partake in the Lord's Supper with us.
What we believe is that this is for all believers of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
And so if you're a professing believer of Jesus Christ, we want to invite you to do this with us.
And like I said, we'll do this.
As our last act of worship at the very end of the service.
And then somewhat briefly, I want to talk a little bit about our Kids Camp that you heard in the announcements.
This was in the budget last year.
We've talked a little bit about this in meetings that we've had.
But as far as letting everyone know what we are doing this summer, this is a little bit different than the way that inks have been done before.
We're trying something new.
We're excited about it.
It's a lot of work, but we're excited.
So let me stop rambling and share with you what's going on.
So as you guys know, every year we do a VBS like experience here at our church.
It is looked differently in the ten summers that I've been at Willow Ridge Church.
And so every year there's kind of the freedom and flexibility.
And so as we sat around as a staff and we're dreaming and praying about what God would have for us, we began to go down this and have these conversations about what about if we did something completely different while still holding on to the things that we think are extremely valuable for sharing the gospel with kids.
And so what came from those discussions and those prayers is Kids Camp 2023.
And so you'll see there's these cards at the table that Aaron and I will be at.
They're back there.
They're over at building two.
They're at any check in station that you can get.
So I want to kind of explain a little bit of why this is different and what this looks like.
So it is July 10 through the 13th.
It will be Monday through the thursday in the evenings, like we've always done before.
Something that's a little different.
And the reason why is our setup and structure that this is for kids who are currently in kindergarten through fifth grade in this calendar school year, is who we're going to provide that for.
Now, we're trying to break a little bit of Willow Ridge culture a little bit.
So everybody please listen to me on this.
There's a deadline to register, all right?
There's a deadline to register.
And that deadline, because of all the things that have to be prepared and we'll talk about that in just a second, is going to be on June the 11th.
So not only does it mean that there's no walk ups on the night of that, the deadline is at June 11, all right?
And we're going to keep reminding each and every one of you and us for that as well, because we are bad at breaking deadlines on our end also.
So the deadline to register is on June the 11th.
There is a cost, and that's a little bit different.
And the reason why there's a cost is because for every kid that comes through and is a part of this, they're going to have a T shirt.
We're going to feed them dinner, like a full dinner.
The expectation is that it makes me and Mike C.
Full, all right?
So the dinner is supposed to make me and Mike C.
Full, and so that will make sure that your kid is full as you go through this.
Mike C.
Says challenge accepted.
Right?
So the cost for those $20 to help us kind of work through that.
But then also and this is what I think is important is for the supplies that your kids are going to use while they're here.
For kids camp, we're going to have worship just like we always have worship.
We're going to have Bible teaching just like we always have Bible teaching.
We're going to talk about missions and have an opportunity for your kids to learn more and engage in missions.
Over the course of that week, none of those things has changed.
What has changed is some of the structure within a normal VBS that this morning I'm just going to refer to as the activities.
And if you've been a part of a VBS before, you know that you have kids that move from this activity to this activity to this activity to this activity, and it's kind of a rinse and repeat, regardless of age, regardless of passions, regardless of what they're into or what they're interested in.
And so what we've decided to do on our end of things is what if we took those activities and we formed activities around the personalities and the hobbies and the passions and the pursuits of our kids that fall into this age range.
And then what your kids, along with you, get to do when you register for them is let us know what activities they want to be a part of.
Okay?
So we're going to provide things like art, we're going to provide things like dance, we're going to provide things like woodworking, we're going to provide things like culinary and a lot of different things that aren't normally tied up into a VBS, but to be able to offer these for your kids.
And so that's the reason why for us, there's a cost.
Your kids will take home things not that take 30 seconds to put together, but that take 30, 40 minutes to put together and work through and that.
They get to create and that they get to use their hands and their.
Minds and even maybe walk away from here learning some skills that could be useful.
And so we're excited about that.
But we're also excited about what we're going to be talking about and what we're going to talk about through the course of the week by looking primarily.
At the life of David Is.
We're going to talk about that, you and I, that when we were made, that we were made for worship.
And we do worship.
The question is, who do we worship?
Right?
And so we're going to talk about that with your kids all the way through.
We're working on small groups where they'll.
Sit down twice each night and have.
Specific questions that help them walk through.
And process all the things that they've heard in the large group teaching and.
Worship time so that they can process.
This and understand and maybe even ask the question even for a kindergartner all the way to a fifth grader.
Well, who is it that I truly.
Worship and what does it mean to worship Jesus with all that I am?
Okay, so we want to encourage you.
We're going to remind you every single week to get registered for this online process that you can walk through.
I said this for secret church.
If this QR code extremely frightens you in the pit of your stomach about doing this, come see one of us.
We'll walk you through it.
You can also go to our website and you can get registered online for that as well.
And so we're excited about that.
Pray for that.
We're still having meetings, we're still planning.
If you'd like to volunteer and be a part of that, there's a spot for you as well in the registration process to let us know that you want to volunteer, and then we can place you where God can use you.
In the most effective manner for that evening.
Okay, so we're excited.
Please pray for this and be a part of this as well.
If you've got any questions afterwards, feel free to ask any of us as staff.
Like I said, I'll be back in the back.
You'll see Dawn, Joel, Dave will be back in the back as well.
Burger all of us, as we're a part of this.
So as we let's go ahead and we're going to jump to Genesis now, genesis five.
In just a moment we're going to read in verse 28 and as we cycle through, as we're going through this book, we see that creation was good and then it got bad quick and then it got real bad real quick.
And if you're living in today, which you are, and if you're not isolating yourself from the world, which you're not, you know that this world is a hard place to be in right now.
And it's not a 2023 problem.
It's a problem from the fall.
In my conversations with others and in my conversations with myself, it can begin to feel that there's a lack of hope.
There can begin to feel that the circumstances that define this world are the circumstances that define us.
And as we look through the genealogy last week and for what we're going to look forward to today, I hope is a reminder for us that things are different for us.
Not free from where we live, not free from where we've experienced, but deep down resonating in who we are or if we are in Christ is different.
And what we need to do in this moment is cling to hope.
Cling to hope.
And we're going to look at this this morning in Genesis five, what this looks like to cling to hope.
So the question is what is hope?
We all very quick, very quickly could give a definition of hope in our world.
We've probably used that word today.
And I find that for most of us, even for me, when I use the word hope, what I'm oftentimes referring to is wishful thinking.
Like when we say I hope something will happen.
Let me share with you one of those.
For me today I hope to get a nap, right?
I don't know that I'm going to get a nap.
I don't think I'm going to get a nap, but I hope to get a nap.
It's wishful thinking.
Let me give you another one.
For me next year, I hope that my South Carolina gamecocks can win a national championship in football.
I know everyone who laughs, a Clemson fan, I get it, I get it, right?
I don't think it's going to happen, but I hope it's going to happen.
It's wishful thinking.
We hope tomorrow's a pretty day.
We hope our week goes well.
We typically say these things because inside of us is this pessimist that says it's probably not going to happen, but we hope it's going to happen.
But did you know that that's not the definition of hope in the Bible?
The definition of hope in the Bible can be summed up and there's a lot of different ways that we could look at hope.
But the definition of hope in Scripture is confident expectation.
Confident expectation.
See, that's different.
I expect something to happen means I think it's going to happen, but it's a confident expectation, which means I know that it's going to happen.
And I've got to remind myself of this.
Paul writes about this in Romans 824 through 25.
For in this hope we were saved.
Now, hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he sees.
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it.
With patience is what Paul says.
We wait for it with patience.
Wait in the Bible also is different from us.
When we hear the word wait, that we're to wait on the Lord, that there's an active waiting that takes place.
It's not go lay down and wait.
For this to happen.
It's not become angry and bitter while you wait for this to happen, but it is a doing the work that it takes to wait while we wait.
On the return of the Lord.
And so, in a sinful world, here is what hope does in the life of a believer.
Hope creates in us a dissatisfaction with the sinfulness and the brokenness of the world that we look around and we say, I have hope because this is not as good as it gets.
We said this last week in Christ, this world is as bad as it's going to get for you.
If you are found in Jesus, this world is the bottom.
But if you're not found in Jesus, this world is as good as it gets.
So we hope.
We have hope because this world is.
Not as good as it gets.
And so we become more and more dissatisfied with the sinfulness and the brokenness of the world.
But also hope reminds us that what is needed is saving, not fixing.
The world needs salvation.
The world does not need to be fixed.
The world needs to be saved.
It does not need another bandaid or piece of duct tape.
And hope reminds us that it is Jesus, and we actively wait for him.
He is our hope and our hope in Him and in him alone.
This is what we're going to see in Genesis five.
It's what we're going to see as we look at an individual who looks at the world around him and in his dissatisfaction, what comes from that is hope.
So let's look starting to verse 28.
We're going to read 28 through 32.
When Lemmek had lived 182 years, he.
Fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toils of our hands.
And Lamek lived after he fathered Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters.
Thus all the days of Lamek were 777 years and he died.
And after Noah was 500 years old.
Noah Fathered Shim Ham and Jacob.
If you were with us last week, if not, I encourage you to go back and listen to this.
We see in Genesis, chapter five we see this pattern, okay?
And here's the pattern.
We see this person lives.
They have kids, they live some more, they die, right?
But then the pattern broke.
Who'd the pattern break with enoch.
The pattern broke with enoch.
Enoch was different.
It says that in Enoch that he walked with the lord and that god took him.
And the difference that we see and.
So here with Enoch, we see a.
Different break in the pattern, and then.
We see a different break in the pattern as well for lamekin.
And here's what he does.
We see what his son's name is.
Which is what we've seen.
But then he also explains the meaning of the son's name.
I'm sorry, the meaning of the son's name.
And then here's what Noah's name means, okay?
When you look at the words that are used, it means this one will give rest.
Which is a crazy thing to name a baby, right?
Because babies don't give rest, do they?
Not at all.
It's not, hey, have a baby, then catch a few naps, all right?
That's not this all.
This one will give us rest.
So what in the world why would Lamek do this?
He looks at the world.
He looks at all that he sees.
All that he knows, all that he.
Has experienced, all that's been passed down upon generation of generation of lived, died.
Lived, died, lived, died.
But Enoch walked with the Lord.
Lived, died.
And he sees the brokenness of sin, and he sees the evidence of the curse, and he makes a choice, and he chooses to cling to hope.
Now, by naming his son Noah, what lemmek is expressing is that his hope from the situation of the world will be found through what god will do with Noah.
Lennock is given a cry for a redeemer in this moment.
That's what hope is.
Hope is not looking at yourself.
Me looking at myself and saying, what can I do?
But hope is looking to God and asking, what god's going to do?
And even more specifically in your life, god, what would you have me do?
Who would you have me become?
It's the cling to hope.
I want to ask you a question.
To think about in your mind with what you've experienced.
What do you think the world's greatest problem is?
I want you to think about that question just for a moment.
There's lots of problems.
We can talk about problems for days, but in your top five of problems in the world, what would number one be for you?
The biggest problem that you think this world faces?
Now, as you think of that, here's what you're also going to answer.
By determining what the problem is, you will then also determine who you think can save the world from this problem.
So let's say hunger, right?
You look out and you see the.
Massive amounts of people who starve on a daily basis.
They have no access to clean drinking water.
Simply by hydrating themselves, they are slowly killing themselves.
It's a bad problem.
And you say, well then the solution is feeding programs.
The solution is nutrition.
The solution is clean water.
If we could just do that then the world would be saved.
There's a lot of evidence that points to this next problem is a horrific problem that plagues every society and every culture.
And there's lots of evidence that points to problem number two, that if you could solve this that much of society's problems would be solved.
That problem is illiteracy.
Illiteracy.
So if we can come in and create systems of education, if we can come in that through the power of learning, we can walk alongside communities and civilizations and countries who are rampant with illiteracy.
And what can come from this is prosperity that will spill out over and over again and then the problem is solved.
The third problem poverty.
It's hard to get food, it's hard to get water.
It's hard to go to school when there's poverty.
So if we could just solve poverty, then that would be it, right?
So we look to flood economies with resources of funds.
We look to flood economies with our cultures and countries with trainings so that we can raise up and teach skills so that men and women and kids know how to start their own business, that they know how to live independently and that they know how to do these things.
And in this financial opportunity will bring in money.
The economy will be boosted.
That will affect illiteracy, that will affect hunger, that will affect the dirty water, that will affect the medicine, that will affect everything that's there.
And from this the world will be saved.
Now I want to say this should we work for these things?
Yes, we should.
We should.
We as Christians should work in our community and all over the world to be a part of the solution of these problems.
But here's what I want us to understand.
These problems are symptoms, not causes.
These problems that the world faces where we feel like hope is leaving our.
Symptoms, they're not problems.
But if your answer, which is what I would encourage your answer to be.
Is sin is the depravity of man.
The heart of him that we're going.
To see in just a moment in chapter six, like a cancer is spreading.
If sin is the number one problem in the world, then we've just determined our savior and it's Jesus.
And it's Jesus.
Selemic understands the problem and his hope is God in Noah will bring a redeemer.
And here's what we know.
We know that in this moment of what we'll start looking at next week with the flood that Noah will be a type of redeemer, but Noah will not be the redeemer.
But that when we see that the redeemer will come through the line, will come through the lineage of noah.
And so Jesus is our hope and Jesus is our redeemer.
Paul writes in one Timothy 410 for to this end we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living God who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe.
And this is what we cling to.
This is the hope that we have in Jesus the Redeemer.
So let me ask you, are you a person of hope or are you going to be a person that we're going to see here in just a moment?
Genesis six.
Are you a person that's clinging to compromise?
Because you're either clinging to hope or you're clinging to compromise.
Let's read Genesis six, verses one through four.
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any they choose.
And then the Lord said, my Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh.
His days shall be 120 years.
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward.
And when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them, these were the mighty men who were of old, the men of Renown.
Let's pause here for a moment.
In verses one through four, I want us to kind of understand what is happening, okay?
Sometimes in Scripture we're going to see this with Genesis.
Things are happening chronologically.
So one story picks up the next story, the next story, the next story.
What we read in Genesis six, verses one through four, is what's been happening since the Fall.
That's what's been happening since sin came in.
And what we see here is that population is spreading.
And Genesis six, one through four, tells us literally what has been taking place and happening.
But I believe in a figurative manner and that there's this expansion of human life and that there's this expansion of human achievement.
We talked about this a little bit in Genesis four.
And here's what's taking place.
Cities are being built.
Technology is being developed, cultures are being defined, and those things seem great.
But in this, human wickedness is increasing.
And what we find here in verse two is that the wickedness is spreading as it's connected to marriage and the growth of population.
And so depravity continues on and continues on and continues on.
In verse two, there's lots of thoughts.
Who are the sons of God and who are the daughters of man?
What I believe that what we're seeing here is they're representative, these terms are, and that the sons of God are the godly men, the Godly lineage of.
Seth, and they marry the daughters of.
Man that are the ungodly women in the lineage of Cain.
And this is what happens.
Now, why would they do this?
Why would Godly individuals choose to marry ungodly individuals.
Compromise.
Now, here's why.
The language in Genesis six two is almost identical to the language in Genesis three six.
Genesis three six is the verse where it talks about Eve seeing the fruit.
I want to read that to you.
Genesis three six.
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom she took some and ate it.
So Eve saw that the fruit was good, pleasing, beautiful.
It appealed to her flesh.
So what did she do?
She took it.
She made the decision that I'm going to take this.
And then what did she do?
She ate it.
She consumed it.
And because of Eve's desire, because of.
Her flesh she took that which she.
Was not supposed to take and it.
Became part of her.
The same language in Genesis Six two the sons of God saw.
Through their.
Flesh and they were attracted.
They were drawn to the beautiful daughters of the sons of man.
And so even though it wasn't for them, they took and they married.
And in the covenant of their marriage they conceived as the two became one.
And generation after generation after generation in compromise.
When we compromise it's the appeal to the flesh of man over the plan of God.
That's what compromise is.
That's what spiritual compromise is.
I'm a fan of compromise, right?
How do you have a happy marriage?
Compromise, right?
Anybody thinks you're going to get your.
Way all the time in your marriage?
Guess what?
You are.
You are wrong.
Right?
And what you need to do is you need to compromise.
We compromise.
Aaron.
I compromise.
You compromise at work, right?
You can't have it your way all the time.
You compromise in friendships.
You compromise in a lot of things.
And so it becomes natural for us.
To compromise but we cannot compromise from the truth of God and be people of hope.
And so the sons of God and the daughters of men marry and these marriages contribute and continue to build to the moral decline of the earth and it bears fruit.
And here's what we see.
We see that from these marriages.
We see from the continuation of the population, right?
We see the continued decline of the family.
We see restriction of the years of human life.
We see further removal from the presence of God.
And we'll talk about the nephilim and the men of our here in just a second.
But we see a society that is built on war and violence and this is where we find ourselves.
The nephilim that are that are mentioned in Genesis six are only mentioned one other time in Scripture.
Numbers 1333.
And in numbers 1333 the Israelites are battling and they're describing the men that they are fighting and they appear to them as giants, right?
Do I think they were giants?
No.
But you ever gone into a fight and know it's not going to work.
Out well for you.
Right.
And they look like giants.
And so we see the Nephilim, those warriors, this warrior class is there.
And what comes from the sons of God marrying the daughters of man is this warrior class from within them that has to well up.
Why?
Because war is rampant.
Murder and violence have spread through.
And what comes from this generation that we see is destruction and destruction and destruction.
And this group of people will be the people we read about in Genesis eleven four that say, let us build a name for ourselves.
And this is where society has fallen.
This is where we see we are in the flood.
Compromise in our faith is not the best of both worlds.
It's simply the best this world has.
To offer, which isn't much.
So do you hope?
Are you a person of hope?
Are you a person of compromise?
Because we'll close this morning with this.
What we see in verses five through eight are the grieving.
The grieving heart of God says, 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 the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart.
So the Lord said, I will blot.
Out man whom I've created from the.
Face of this land man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens for I am sorry that I have made him.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Now, this is hard verses for you and I to accept.
We see this aspect of God that is difficult for us to rationalize and to work through.
But let's look at what God sees.
Verse five.
The Bible tells us that God sees the great wickedness of man.
In the original language it says that continually man showed evil continually, over and over and over again.
And it was so great this evil was that it formed who he was and that the wickedness and the evil had penetrated the heart, the will, the intellect of man.
Man cannot think without evil.
He cannot do without evil.
And man to his core is evil.
And this is all of mankind.
This is what God, who sees all, who knows all this is what God sees.
And so how does God respond?
Verse six.
The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved.
Him to his heart.
So he regretted and he grieved.
Let me paint a picture of what these words are.
This word regret, means to sigh.
You ever seen someone that you love make choices that aid to the destruction of their being and you can't stop them?
And you sigh not because you're annoyed.
You sigh because you hurt for them.
God regretted and God sad.
And then it said.
That God grieved.
God grieved.
This word for grieved means to be filled with pain.
God was filled with pain over the wickedness of man.
If you think you cut on the news, you jump on social media, you see an experience and it hurts.
You imagine God, and it filled with pain.
And God did not regret in the sense that he made a mistake and had sorrow of his creation.
But God is grieving as to what man has made of Himself.
Man has forsaken the very image of God that he was created in and instead chosen the image of this world.
So here's what I'll tell you.
God does verse seven.
God acts.
God acts on his sigh.
God acts on his pain.
And so the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created.
From the face of the land man and animals and creeping things and birds.
Of heaven, for I'm sorry that I have made them.
Now look at where we've jumped from Genesis 131, from it being very good to now.
God saying, I'm going to wipe out this creation.
And if we end on verse seven.
Then oh boy, oh boy, if we.
End and it's going to start over.
But that's not and so God's wrath is going to come.
But in God's wrath, and this is what we'll close with in God's wrath, there's hope.
We go back at verse eight.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
What is favor?
This word for favor is grace.
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
In verse nine it says that these are the generations of Noah.
And Noah was a righteous man blameless in his generation, and Noah walked with God whole.
Noah walked with God.
So God looks out and he sees the depravity of every man.
He sees the wickedness of every man and every means, every.
But he sees Noah.
And Noah finds favor with God.
Why does Noah found favor with God?
Not because of who Noah is, but because of who God is.
And Noah walks with God and lives in God's grace.
And so God does not wipe out all of humanity because he finds good in man.
God does not wipe out all of humanity except for one man and his family, because God is good.
And we can read Noah and the ark and we can walk away from this and only see God's wrath, only see the message.
And God's wrath is real, and God's wrath is poured out on sin.
But we can miss what we find.
That's right here in verse eight.
But Noah found grace in the eyes of God because Noah was found in relationship with him.
You see, the theology of the Bible continues on.
One verse doesn't contradict another, but yet one verse enlights and teaches of another.
And so Genesis six eight is appointing to what we will see in Ephesians two eight through nine.
For by grace, by the favor of God.
You and I have been saved through faith.
This is not of your own doing.
It is the gift of God, not a result of works.
So that what no.
1 may boast.
We praise the Lord because Noah found favor with God.
And that's the picture that we see next week.
We're going to see Him, and we're going to see the flood.
And if we're not careful, we'll see.
The wrath and we'll miss the grace.
In your life.
If you're not careful, you'll see the wrath, which is true, and miss the grace in the lives of others, especially those that cause us to sigh and that cause us to grieve.
You can see the wrath and miss the opportunity for grace, because the truth of scripture is there's wrath, and it's coming.
But Jesus jesus got on a cross, and here's what he did.
Here's what we did for Tinley.
Here's what he did for Jeremiah.
Here's what we did for me, and here's what he did for you.
He got on that cross and he took on the wrath of God.
Every bit of it poured out onto Him so that you and I could have grace, so that you and I will not be defined by the sinfulness.
Of our art, but will be found by the family that we're in, that.
We are in Christ.
That's what we will be found in, and that's who he is.
So this morning, my question for you is how do you see the world?
What are you clinging to?
Cling to the hope of Jesus, knowing that he took what we deserved and he bore it on the cross?
Thanks again for listening, and be sure to check back next week for another episode.
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