Focus: The Canvas of Grace

Text: Gen.6:8

"But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord."

Noah discovered God's amazing grace in his day. It was the unearned and undeserved favor of God.

You will better appreciate the grace of God when you understand the dark canvas on which God applies the brush of grace.

Genesis 6 tells us that Noah's world was filled with moral corruption and violence. The Genesis account has it that "the earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth" (Gen.6:11-12). It got to a point where God said, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh… And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen.6:3,5). God felt pain in His heart as He watched man going in the wrong direction and living contrary to His original plan. 

It was amid this wickedness, corruption and violence that Noah found favor with God. While God was prepared to bring an end to man's foolishness, He was offering Noah saving grace. The Scripture says, "BUT Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD." Do you see the dark, gloomy and messy background out of which the grace of God lighted upon Noah? That is the canvas of grace. 

Great wickedness, great grace! Great violence, great grace! Utter corruption, utmost grace! Paul says, "But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Rom.5:20). As far as this creation and redemption is concerned, God controls the narrative. Satan will never have the last laugh; God will. Righteousness will replace wickedness. Peace will triumph over violence, and resurrection or the new creation will end all corruption. God turns ashes into beauty. Noah, whose name means rest, found grace with God. Rest and grace came together in the life of an individual.

After finding God's grace, Noah was described as being "just and perfect in his generations," and he "walked with God."

It is on this dark canvas that God, the divine painter and perfect artist, applies His brush of grace, and paints so marvelously, producing a masterpiece of art.

God uses the ugly to fabricate beauty. He uses the awful to manufacture the awesome. He uses the bad to produce the good. He has His way of turning things around and filling the earth with His glory. God paints so well with the brush of grace. The strokes of His brush never miss the intent of the divine artist and creative painter. What grace commences, glory consummates.

You are among those who have found grace in the sight of God in this messy and troubled world. God has counted you among the blessed. 

In Christ you are in a safe place. The blood of Jesus Christ covers you. The word of God sanctifies you. The truth has set you free. Grace has singled you out for a grand purpose.

You will not perish along with the perishing. The flood is not meant for you. Your place is in the ark of Christ.

The ark is designed for your preservation, just like the ark in which Moses was preserved (Exo.2:3). It is the ark of grace - a place of preservation amid the damning and destructive flood. God paints beautifully on the canvas of grace.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter