Gen 6:8, But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
	What a tremendous statement for God to make about Noah! When all the inhabitants of the earth were doing only evil in the sight of God, Noah found grace. His heart alone was after that which was pleasing to God and that amounted to the salvation of not just Noah, not just his family, but of humanity because … Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This morning, let us consider a couple of aspects of this wonderful provision of God’s love which extends to all those who find grace in the eyes of the Lord. 
	First of all, this is something that is not to be taken lightly. It is of paramount importance that the same be said of us. To find grace in the eyes of God means eternal salvation. Without God’s grace, we have no hope, no avenue of rescue, no manner of true spiritual life, no ability to say that if God is for us, who can be against us. Without the active grace of God at work in us, we are doomed in every single aspect of that awful situation. We are simply the walking dead, moving aimlessly through the days of our lives until we die to eternally suffer the indescribable anguishes of hell. 
	God’s grace, evidenced in the story of Noah, is our salvation in Jesus Christ. Because God so loved us, He called us unto Himself and gave us His salvation. It is all by the single reality of God’s grace being poured out upon us in His so great love. It is all by His work and His mercy and His sacrifice that we are found in the saving arms of His Only Begotten Son. This is life now and forevermore, and we must never belittle it nor take it for granted. By His election, we, too, have found grace in the eyes of the Lord. 
	This is something over which we hold no control in our lives or in the lives of others. It is not because of something that we have done that proclaims us as more virtuous than another. It is definitely not a thing that can be lorded over others, because we do not know who will find grace in the eyes of the Lord. It is not our call to make and not our place of judgment. Too many people audaciously insert themselves into the arena of being judge and jury over other people, especially family members, condemning them to hell for their actions. We can never know unto whom God’s grace will extend. That is only in the heart of God. As God told Moses in Ex 33:17-19, And the Lord said to Moses, "I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight, and I have known you by name." Then Moses said, "I pray Thee, show me Thy glory!" And He said, "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion." 
	God’s grace is God’s alone to bestow upon whomsoever He chooses to receive it. As grace, it not only bestows upon us the salvation of God, but something that is even deeper and richer and of absolutely primary importance. It works in us the ability to see God in all His Glory. His grace opens the door into a living and personal relationship with the very Creator of the heavens and the earth. Listen to how Moses responded to the favor that he received in the sight of God. Ex 33:12-14, Then Moses said to the Lord, "See, Thou dost say to me, 'Bring up this people!' But Thou Thyself hast not let me know whom Thou wilt send with me. Moreover, Thou hast said, 'I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.' "Now therefore, I pray Thee, if I have found favor in Thy sight, let me know Thy ways, that I may know Thee, so that I may find favor in Thy sight. Consider too, that this nation is Thy people." And He said, "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest." 
	Because Moses found favor in the sight of the Lord, Moses asked God, not only for himself, but for God’s own people, that Moses could come to know God and His ways. He sought the guidance and the direction from God as to that manner in which he was to lead the Israelites. It was life-changing urgency to Moses to learn more and more about the ways of God, Who had showered Moses with His grace and favor. 
	And, as another aspect of this bestowed grace of God, please note the full effect of that grace in action. God promised that His presence would go with Moses and that He would give Moses peace. Again, this is no small element of life. To know the very presence of God is to be led and counseled and guided and protected and fed and taught by His very hand. It is to know that peace and that rest which surpasses all human understanding. No matter what is going on around us in the turmoil and the anxiousness and the anxiety of this age, we are at rest in the knowledge and the abiding presence of Our Lord God Almighty.
	This brings us directly into the next aspect of consideration in terms of our finding grace in the eyes of the Lord. We are encouraged by the Psalmist in this reality many, many times. As but a couple of examples, listen to Ps 84:11, For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. Note that God gives grace and glory. He is a shield and withholds no good thing from us. He is not subject to the whims and the fancies of humanity. He does not play around with our psyches based on an emotional state of mind. He is constant in His love and constant in His bestowment of grace.
 	In Ps 145:17-20, we read, The Lord is righteous in all His ways, And kind in all His deeds. The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them. The Lord keeps all who love Him; But all the wicked, He will destroy. He is always righteous in His dealings with us and is always near to us. It truly means everything to know that He hears us and is with us, no matter what the hour of the day or the place of our anguish. He is there and He is mighty to save. He keeps us unto Himself and surrounds us with His mercy and grace and love, no matter what! There is a complete assurance in His covering of grace which sees us through the harshest of situations and dilemmas. We have no doubt and no reason to fear because He is our salvation. 
	Additionally, as we are told in Prov 3:1-6, we are to bind kindness and truth around our neck and upon the tablet of our heart because of His kindness and truth. In so doing, we will see His grace and His kindness and His truth become the manner of our walk in this life. My son, do not forget my teaching, But let your heart keep my commandments; For length of days and years of life, And peace they will add to you. Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good repute In the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. 
	Notice that He will make our paths straight. He will grant us favor, not only in His eyes, but in the eyes of men. Please keep in mind that it will be in the eyes of those men who are after the heart of God. We do not obey and honor Him for what reputation we can earn for ourselves. That will never result in any good thing, only failure and disappointment and dissension. When we truly honor God, and seek to live our lives in the manner which pleases Him, He will show forth all that is to be heeded by mankind. 
	Additionally, we are to lean upon His understanding and trust in Him for the manner in which to conduct ourselves with regard to other people. We learn to first seek what honors Him, then we will know how to order our dealings with humanity. We will find that we treat others with the very heart of God which so loved us unto Himself. We will not be influenced by what we can get, but rather by what we can give for their sake and for the Lord to bless them. In other words, we will find ourselves living a grace-filled life for the sake of others according to His plan and His purpose, blessing others as we have been so blessed.   
With regard to the grace of the Lord’s understanding and wisdom, we are encouraged to seek after the Lord constantly to supply our needs. He is to be the all-sufficiency of all our understanding. We must never neglect Him and His way of grace in our moment-by-moment walk with Him. Prov 8:33-35, "Heed instruction and be wise, And do not neglect it. "Blessed is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at my doorposts. "For he who finds me finds life, And obtains favor from the Lord. When we rely on Him to be our wisdom, we will know what life truly entails. He will manifest Himself in all His graciousness and majesty if we will but seek Him with the every fabric of our being. We will know that the face of the Lord is toward us as He opens every avenue of our heart’s understanding of His ways on this earth.  
The other aspect of knowing God’s favor and grace is that we learn that we have nothing to fear from this age. Listen to the provision of God’s grace promised to Mary at the announcement of her blessed pregnancy. Luke 1:26-30, Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And coming in, he said to her, "Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was greatly troubled at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. 
When we know the favor and the grace of God, we have no fear of the unknown. This is most often the deepest source of our anxiety and strife, as we face the uncertainty of what lies ahead. But, by the grace of God, that fear is eliminated. It is relegated to the dust-bins of our minds as we look forward to seeing how God will make fully apparent Himself in all His glory in our lives. We will not cower at the unknown, but rather face it with the strength of the fortitude of Christ, in the knowledge that God does have all things well in hand.  
	We will echo the confident voice of the Apostle Paul in the certainty of our position now in Jesus Christ. 1 Cor 15:10, But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. We are who we are singly and fully by the very grace of God. In that truth, whatever befalls us will be in line with His plan and His purpose. It can be no other way. It is His grace that has pulled us up out of death into life and it is His grace that will see us on into the eternal ages of ages in the love of God. 
	Again, as we read of the Apostle Paul’s confidence in what God’s grace had accomplished in his life, we discover the reason for it all. Gal 1:15+16a, But when He who had set me apart, even from my mother's womb, and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles… God is revealing His Son in us, making us direct partakers of the very person of Jesus Christ as our life. This is to show forth Jesus alive and crowned in glory for all the world to see. His grace also serves to show us how we ought to live forth on this earth, to God’s glory alone.
	Titus 2:11-14, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. The church has a great responsibility under God’s grace to conduct ourselves in the manner which shows forth His effective dealings in us. Again, this is not something that we earn by our meritorious living and our self-induced efforts of holiness. 
	Titus 3:5-7, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Our righteousness is that of Jesus Christ as He lives forth from us. As we seek to honor Him, we become more and more able to partake of His holiness in operation. Everything, in every manner is from God and returns to God by the vehicle of His grace in operation in our lives. 
	Therefore, let us begin to view the events and the trials and the circumstances and the hardships of this earthly life in the right manner of the heavenly perspective. Let our eyes see beyond the circumstances to the effect that those circumstances will have by the active grace of God. Rather than being filled with fear, trembling with horror as this age twists and convulses in its death throes of sin and anguish, let us focus our eyes on Jesus as the Lord of all creation. Again, as the Writer to the Hebrews declares for us in Heb 4:16, Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need. 
	God’s grace is active and will not be thwarted. It will accomplish all that He determines as the fulfillment of His plan and purpose in His creation. Let us never doubt or fear, but ever declare the wonder and the splendor and the majesty of God seen in His bountiful and omnipotent gift of Grace, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. So be it!
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Amen. 

			
 
This morning’s benediction is Rom 15:13. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.