DWDP - Gen 7-9 Noah Found Grace

A single line flips the darkest chapter into a story of hope: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” We open Genesis 6:7–9 and follow that thread of grace through judgment, obedience, and a faith that dared to build before rain existed. Rather than offering a neat moral, we slow down to trace a five-step progression that runs through Noah’s life and our own: grace, justification, sanctification, walking with God, and good works. It’s the same arc Ephesians 2:8–10 lays out—salvation by grace through faith, then a life shaped for the good works God prepared in advance.

We also tackle the uncomfortable truth about sin’s spillover. Broken vows don’t just scar spouses; they bruise children. Addiction doesn’t haunt one soul; it hollows out homes. The flood story shows how human evil reverberates outward, touching even creation. Yet the reverse is also true: integrity blesses. Joseph’s righteousness lifted a pagan household, and faithful choices still change rooms we enter and teams we lead. Noah’s centuries of preaching with only six visible converts remind us that faithfulness beats scoreboard success. Outcomes belong to God; obedience belongs to us.

Along the way, we talk about what happens as believers age and draw nearer to the finish line. The older saints we admire speak less about achievements and more about grace. That shift isn’t sentimental—it’s clarity. The closer we get to God’s holiness, the more we see our need and the deeper our gratitude grows. Noah’s story doesn’t end with his craftsmanship or leadership. It ends with grace getting the headline. If this conversation stirs you to trade metrics for obedience and applause for communion, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review to tell us where you’re seeing grace lead you into action.

Chapters

• 0:00 Gathering For Devotions
• 0:31 Reading Genesis 6:7–9
• 1:42 Judgment And The Cost Of Sin
• 3:06 Sin And Righteousness Spillovers
• 4:39 Noah Found Grace
• 6:13 The Five-Step Spiritual Progression
• 8:52 Ephesians 2 And Good Works
• 10:35 Noah’s Preaching And Few Converts
• 12:06 Faith Before There Was Rain
• 13:37 Finishing With Grace, Not Merit
• 15:01 Growing Gratitude For God’s Grace

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:02

Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, Dr. Robert Jackson.

Speaker: 0:16

Papa, can you tell me a story? Do you really want me to tell you a story? Well, you go get your brother and your sisters, and I will tell you a story. Welcome to Devotions with Dr. Papa. Gather round, grab your Bible, and let's look into the written word, which reveals to us the living word who is our Lord Jesus Christ. Today we're at Genesis chapter six verses seven through nine. Let me read these verses to you. The Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals, to creeping things and to birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Now that verse could easily read, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. In fact that's how it reads in the King James Version. These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time. Noah walked with God. Now if you remember that's what it said about Enoch, that Enoch walked with God. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word. God's patience and long suffering with sinful man over many hundreds of years, in fact seventeen hundred years had finally run out. God's offended righteousness and violated justice demanded payment because the penalty for sin, as you know, is death. The soul that sins shall surely die. And God said in verse seven, the Lord said I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals. If he is going to blot out mankind with a flood, then the creatures will of necessity have to die as well. For you see, the consequence of sin spills over into the lives of those around us, don't they? The sin of man affected even the creatures. Your sin and my sin don't just pollute my life and your life, but it always corrupts the life of the people around us. It never just spoils your life alone. That's why the innocent children are often the broken pieces of divorce and broken marriages. That's why so many foster children suffer without parents due to alcohol and drug abuse, while their parents languish in prison or worse in the grave. So here even the critters had to die in the flood because of the wickedness of man. On the other hand, your righteousness spills over into the life of those around you. Do you recall when scripture described that even Potiphar's garden prospered and was blessed because Joseph was the chief steward in Potiphar's house? Joseph's integrity and Joseph's righteousness spilled over into Potiphar's house and blessed the pagan idol worshiping captain of Pharaoh's guard. Because of man's corruption and violence, because of God's offended righteousness and violated justice, things are looking bleak on planet Earth, and a watery doom has been decreed to cleanse the earth. But then in verse eight we read, but Noah found favor. Really Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah inherited the same old sin nature just like everyone else in his generation. His heart was prone to wander, prone to leave the God he loved just like everyone else. But praise the Lord, praise the Lord, God bestowed grace, God bestowed favor, God bestowed unmerited favor on Noah, plucked his feet up from the miry clay, and set his feet on a solid rock, transformed his heart, and cold called him out to perform a great work for God. This is the very first time we see that word grace or favor in the Word of God. By his sovereign choosing and by grace alone God prepared the heart of Noah to respond in obedient faith to God's will. Now pay close attention to the progression in verse eight and nine, because it's the exact same progression that we see in our spiritual journey. Number one, Noah found grace. Then number two, Noah was a just slash righteous man. That word righteous means justified. It means to be declared righteous. Then number three, it says he was blameless or complete in his generation, in other words, sanctified, which allowed him to be number four, able to walk with God. So pay attention to that progression. Number one, he found grace. Number two, he was justified. Number three, he was blameless or sanctified, and number four, that allowed him to walk with God or have fellowship with God, and number five, it ends with good works. And in four times in Scripture it says that Noah did all that God commanded him. How was he able to be so obedient? It's because it all started with the grace of God. Well, this exact same progression has played out in your life and in my life. We are spiritually dead, spiritually blind and spiritually in bondage, but by grace alone God imparted spiritual life. He gave to us eyes that see truth and deliverance from sin and Satan. We have been justified by the blood of the Lamb, sanctified, made holy or complete, which qualifies you and me to walk in communion with our heavenly Father, with the Son and with Holy Spirit. Ephesians two eight through ten speaks to this. Listen to what it says. For by grace, same grace that Noah experienced, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, the same good works that Noah performed by obedience to God. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. You see that progression? Grace, justification, being made complete, and then good works. The same progression that we saw in Noah's life. Just like Noah, God has prepared good works for us to accomplish. So far as the biblical record is concerned, Noah was the only one in his generation after Enoch who was taken up and who walked with God. Peter tells us in Second Peter chapter two and verse five that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Noah preached for hundreds of years before God called him to build the ark. And then he preached another hundred years while he constructed the ark. And then what did he have to show for all those years of preaching? Six converts, his three sons and their three wives. I've read stories of missionaries who poured out their entire adult lives on some foreign mission field, planting the seed of the gospel in the midst of a pagan god hating people and never having a single convert to the gospel. But that is usually a thirty to forty years of their adult lives. Noah invested multiple hundreds of years, centuries really, and only had six converts to take into the ark with him. How discouraging must that have been for him? Above all things, Noah was a man of great faith. Remember, before the flood there had been no such thing as rain, but the Bible tells us that a heavy dew or a heavy mist fell on the earth each night. So the idea of a cataclysmic flood was totally foreign to Noah. It was as wild and crazy as if God had appeared to you in the seventeen hundreds and told you to build a spaceship to take your family to another planet because he was planning to destroy this planet. Would you have faith to believe and obey and build that spaceship? I'm just wondering. In the roll call of the faithful in Hebrews eleven, it is only Noah, whose description both begins and ends with the phrase by faith in verse seven of Hebrews eleven. The portion of Genesis attributed to Noah ends with verse eight. His sons take up the storyline in verse nine. It's interesting that Noah concludes his portion by saying But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now listen to me. I understand why he would conclude his memoir with that statement. Even though he was a faithfully obedient preacher of righteousness and the faithful builder of the ark, who did all that God commanded him, there's a peculiar spiritual phenomenon that happens to godly men when they approach the end of their journey. In fact, I saw it in my godly pastor father in law. When he was in his late eighties before he died at age ninety-one, he began to talk more and more about the grace of God and the goodness of God in his life. Now he had been a faithful pastor, he had preached the word of God for sixty plus years, and yet he laid no claim to any merit of his own. But he talked only about the goodness and the grace of God in his life. And I see that same thing in other older Christian men. I see it in my God loving patience as they get it as they become older and get to the end of their journey. As I sense the end of my journey coming nearer. And what is it? You see, as I read God's word, I become more aware of His holiness and more aware of my sinfulness, my wretchedness in comparison to His holiness. I become more grateful for God's grace. I saw that in my pastor father in law. I see that in some of my patients. More grateful for God's grace. I don't brag about any of my accomplishments. I don't see my older patients. I didn't see it in my pastor father in law bragging about any of their accomplishments. I don't dwell on any of my achievements, and neither did they.