(15–20 minutes, easy set-up)
Students will study Genesis 6:5–22 and Hebrews 11:7 to understand the events of the Flood.
Use this outline to share the Biblical Truth with students. The underlined words correspond to the blanks on the Worksheet. Use any of these activities you choose as you teach the outline to your students. The activities correspond to the points in the outline.
Intro: Just like ours, God’s heart can be broken.
Description:How can God’s heart be broken? If He is God, why can’t He guard His heart from such pain? God is not immune from pain because He is the God who is love. When His people sin, His heart is broken.
1. Our hearts point to our condition (Gen. 6:5–8)
Description: Because the hearts of men during this time were filled with evil, God’s heart was filled with pain. Humanity’s collective heart was continually evil, pointing to its purely evil and sinful condition. As a result of humanity’s condition, God decided to destroy the world—except for one man, Noah, and his immediate family.
Illustration: Murders, kidnappings, beatings, child prostitution, slavery, arson, lying, fraud, stealing, and many other evil actions run across the headlines of the nightly news and online newspapers. These actions are not just evil actions. They also reveal the condition of the hearts of the people who committed these crimes. Like in the days of Noah, actions reveal the condition of the heart.
Application: Our sin causes God pain, even if we do not participate in behaviors like the ones mentioned above. All sin is offensive to God. We are all sinners, and our hearts reveal our true nature. Therefore, we must evaluate our own hearts and our own condition. Then we can respond to God with brokenness and repentance.
2. God’s heart reflects grace (Gen. 6:9–22).
Description: Although God’s hatred for sin was obvious in His plan to destroy the world, we can also see His heart of grace through His dealings with Noah. God’s grace is reflected in the fact that although His intent was to destroy humanity, He would preserve Noah and His family and the rest of His creation with them.
Illustration: In the Spider-Man movie, Green Goblin tried to wreak havoc on the city and kill Spider-Man. The superhero web-slinger, who is also Peter Parker, realized that the Green Goblin is his best friend’s father. Spider-Man was finally forced to battle with the Green Goblin—and killed him in defense of the city. Because of his best friend, Spider-Man removed the Green Goblin’s costume and delivered the body back to his friend. Peter never revealed the evil identity of his friend’s father. Because of his desire for goodness, Spider-Man battled the Goblin; because of his grace, he protected his friend’s memory of his father.
Application: God will always act within His character. He must act for the sake of His holiness. We can trust that His grace will always be sufficient and timely and that it will meet us right where we’re at.
3. A heart of faith is seen as righteous (Heb. 11:7).
Description: Noah acted upon God’s instructions and did just as He was told. Noah was obedient because he had faith in God’s ability to save. As a result, God saw that Noah’s actions were a reflection of his heart. Noah was thus viewed by God as righteous.
Illustration: In January of 2009, a flock of birds caused both engines on a U.S. Airways airplane to stop working just a few minutes after takeoff. The pilot steered the plane to land safely in New York’s Hudson River and the flight attendants instructed passengers to safely exit from the plane, ensuring the survival of all 150 passengers. As God trusted Noah, the passengers on this plane trusted the experience and knowledge of the flight attendants to keep everyone safe and subsequently obeyed each and every command.
Application: When we do more than just believe, our faith points people to our heart, revealing who we are and what we really believe.
Conclusion: Salvation and grace are at the very heart of God.
Description: God’s character, including His holiness, is evident throughout Scripture. He has provided us with example after example of His faithfulness to us through salvation and grace.
Application: We must consider God’s hatred of sin and our need to repent. We can be certain of God’s grace in providing a way to save us. We can put our faith in God’s provision for salvation.