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.”
Pastor Kyle continues that whenever we see the rainbow in the sky, we are to remember God’s covenant that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh and His love for us. This brings us to the third thing that we should do before returning to business as usual is to reflect upon and grieve what lies behind, but focus on the hope that is up and ahead. It is important to reflect upon the events of this year and a half long life disruption and grieve the losses. Many will suffer from (PTSD) past-traumatic stress disorder for quite a while from this horrific world event. It shook the world, affected every life and many lost loved ones to the virus. We need to grieve this event and the losses, or we will never heal. But, at the same time, we know that 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 tells us, “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”
Christians grieve the loss, but as those with hope. So, always keep your head, your heart and your hope looking up. God delivered you on purpose and He delivered you for a purpose. The point is that it has been a hard year plus with very significant loss, but God allowed you to made it through. God delivered you to worship and obey Him as you continued your ministry mission on this side of glory for the making of disciples for advancement of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, so that eternal lives may be reached and saved for Christ’s sake. To live a s a Christian is to live a sacrificial life and to live a sacrificial life is to live a hopeful life.
The problem that we have today is that we tend to think of a sacrifice as a negative thing. We think of a sacrifice as God trying to take something away from us, but the fact is this: a sacrifice is actually an investment in eternity and an investment even into our lives here and now. Anything that we place onto the alter of sacrifice is an investment into our heavenly future and even future here now. At the end of a year of world destruction, the first thing Noah did was make a sacrifice and when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma. The Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse 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.”
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. There was a bright sun shining ahead for them as God cared and provided for them. Now-a-days, when we sacrifice, we say: Well, I let go of this or I gave that up. Our body language goes down a bit. But, a sacrifice is something that should make us open up with joy and look up to God with love, being filled with hope. God doesn’t want us walking around through life with our head down and sorrowful. God wants us our head up, our heart up and our hope up with the eternal perspective.
We are faced today with the same choice that Noah and His family had to make, looking back at the loss behind us that we grieve and keep our focus there or look forward to the future while we grieve and learn from the past. But, God wants us to look forward and look up at the hopeful future that He has planned for us. So, before we return to business as usual, we need to remember that some things are so big that a simple “thank you” may not be enough and a sacrifice may be warranted. We need to take a good, hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves: Are we give of our time, talents and treasures. And, we need to reflect and grieve what lies behind, while at the same time focusing our hearts on the hope that is up ahead.
In Christ, Brian
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