Which Nature Are You Nurturing? | The Raven or The Dove | Marcus Mecum | 7 Hills Church

Genesis chapter eight, let's look at verse six. So it came to pass at the end of 40 days that Noah opened the window of the ark, which he had made. Then notice he sends out the raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. He also sent out from himself a dove to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground but the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot. She returned into the ark to him for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. I want you to notice verse nine, but the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot. I wanna talk to you about what or which nature are you nurturing? The history here is Noah sets out to build something that would lead to the salvation of his entire family. Had he not built that ark, had he not focused on what God had called him to build, future generations would have been lost as a result. But as a result of this one man, by the name of Noah, who set out with that one mission, that one reason, future generations have been able to dream, future generations have been able to enjoy God's grace as a result. And so a Noah spirit is a building spirit. It's not just any kind of building spirit,

it's a building spirit that considers the next generations always having the unborn or those yet to be born in mind. And Noah did this by being a builder. The Bible says, when you and I pray in the spirit, we pray in our heavenly language, a God-given language, it builds up or it edifies your spirit. That word edify in the Greek means to build the house. Isn't that something? When you pray in the spirit, it builds the house. The Bible says, when you desire the office of a bishop, it is a good thing to desire. You're like, well, I don't wanna be a bishop. Well, the word bishop in the New Testament meant the superintendent of a building site. So we make it into some, I don't know, royal garments and some bishop ring that you have to walk up and kiss, I guess. But in those days, it was just speaking to somebody that was building. Jesus, of course, when he was on the earth, was a carpenter, he was a builder by trade. And he would go on to say, hey, not only did I do that in the natural, but he said, I will build my church. He hasn't stopped building. He's still building his church. And the gates of hell, that's the promise, shall not prevail against her. Amen. God bless you.

And so God says to Noah, I want you to get ready for something, something you have not seen, something that you have no knowledge, but I want you to get ready for it. And the way you get ready is by building. I wanna say to this church, I'm so excited about this next season. I'm guessing around this time next year, actually, we'll probably begin moving dirt sometime, very soon, sometime this summer, we're getting a few permits ready. But by this time next year, we will, it's not a distant whisper, it's not a hopeful thing. We got a lot of work to do. But this time next year, we will begin to be building that new building in the city of Cincinnati. And you're saying, well, what's the point of you saying that we build lives, we build people, we build families, we build children, we build young people, all of that's true. But the idea is there will be something just like there is in this place. And there will be one in Dry Ridge at some point, for Highland Heights in Cincinnati, for generations from now when we're dead and we're gone, because we had the spirit of Noah, the spirit of a builder, really the spirit of Jesus Christ, future generations will be blessed as a result.

You see, the question is not how you live, the real thing to be considered in life is what am I leaving behind to bless the next generation. The story of Noah is for 40 days and 40 nights, the Bible says it rained, a great storm hit the earth, the earth was flooded, all the The things that existed, there was no land, the whole earth was flooded, and the ark, as a result, began to rise on those floodwaters for 150 days. Noah, with his family, Noah, with all of the created animals that he was instructed to bring on, for 150 days, that ark was being tossed in the waves of those waters of judgment. There came a day, finally, after all that time, imagine all those days he saw no sun, he didn't get to see a blue sky, there was no fresh air, but after those 150 days, God instructed him to finally open the window of the ark. There's three levels on the ark, we kind of have it here locally, you can go see it, but on that third level, there was a window, can you imagine that day, when Noah finally got to open that window and take that breath of fresh air, imagine all those, on that ark, 150 days, all those smelly animals, I mean, what a day that would have been.

But then the story gets very interesting, and the details that we read, it says, Noah takes two birds and he released them, the first bird was a raven, the second would be a dove, and he couldn't have chosen two more opposite birds, their natures would be completely different. A raven is a vulture or a buzzard, it's a flesh eater, it loves to find those things that have been killed or those things that are already dead, it senses the smell of decaying flesh and it's attracted to those things, you see them find their way to roadkill, we see them all the time, but a dove has a completely different nature than the raven. And so when Noah goes and he releases the first bird, the raven, the Bible says it never returned, it never came back to the hands of Noah, it never came back to the hands that had protected it, really saved its life, those hands were there when the storm hit, those hands were there when judgment hit, those hands were there when the worst of life hit, but yet the Bible says that that raven would never return back to the ark or to the hands that saved its life. Noah is a picture of our heavenly father, the ark is a picture of Jesus Christ,

it's a picture of the body of Christ or the church, and the Bible says that raven never returned, and you have to think about it, the waters had not yet receded when the raven was released, and so where did the raven go? How did the raven survive? How did the raven function? It had no tree to land on, it had no mountain peak or summit to land on, so how did it survive? The only place possible for the raven's feet to find some type of rest would have been the carcasses of the dead animals or the bodies of people that would have been floating there on the face of the deep, there would have been no other option other than to land on one of those bodies or to return back to the ark, but the raven chose, it didn't want anything to do with the ark, it didn't want anything to do with Noah, the hands of Noah, it wanted to live out there on the waters of death, it wanted to live out there where all the rotting flesh was, but the second bird, the dove, it circled the ark, went out there, looked around, and immediately flew back to that window,

immediately wanted to find safety in the ark, immediately wanted to find those faithful hands of Noah once again, and so why is it that one bird, one nature of a bird, could find something comforting in a dying, corrupted world where the other, the Bible says the dove, would find no resting place for the souls of her feet? One was comfortable out there in the world around death, the other was uncomfortable, and the reason for this is obvious, it's that they had two completely different natures. You have a raven nature, and you also have a dove nature. I wanna say that every person in this room is dealing with those two natures. Every person in this room has a raven nature. and you have a dove nature. According to Leviticus chapter 11, a raven is an unclean bird. It's unclean, meaning it craves fleshly, carnal, unclean, filthy things that the raven's nature is what it hungers for, what it thirsts for, what it's attracted to, what it's drawn to. That appetite in no way could be fulfilled in the presence, in the covering of the ark. It couldn't be fulfilled in the hands of Noah. It could only find satisfaction away from the ark and away from Noah.

And the scripture is clear, you and I are born with a sin nature. We are born with a raven nature. But when you get saved, 35 years ago, I still remember it like it was yesterday, that dove, symbolic of God's spirit, the Holy Spirit, descended on my life, and as a result, I've never been the same. I received, and when you gave your life to Christ, you received a brand new nature, a new nature that has a completely different appetite than the nature that you had before Christ. When I get born again, when you get born again, the dove comes into your life, the dove comes alive, and from that point on, the question and the issue is no longer nature, the question is nurture. Which nature do you nurture? Do you nurture the raven nature that God has delivered you from, or do you nurture the brand new nature, the dove nature that God has given you? And really, it's super simple to determine which nature you're nurturing. It doesn't mean that you're perfect. We're not talking about do you make mistakes. We're not here talking about that there still might be issues or areas of your life, sanctification, the process of being perfected. It's a process. We're all still in process.

Let me just say, let me just say, I'm still in process. But the difference is, the Bible says, we're sheep of His pasture, and so a sheep might fall in a mud hole, but it doesn't enjoy it. It immediately knows this is not what I was born for. This is not where I wanna stay. It's there, it's covered in the filth, it's covered in the mud, but that's not its nature. It wants to get out of the place it's fallen into. Where if you take a pig and you lead it to the same mud hole that pig not only gets in the mud hole, it loves it there, it wants to live there. It can't imagine living any other place. So the difference is not, do you have the two natures? The difference is once you get in the mud, once you get in the filth, do you love it? Do you desire it? Do you want more of it? Or is there something on the inside of you that says, this just isn't me. This just isn't what I thought it was. This just isn't fulfilling. Is there a sense when you're there that God has made you for more than the mess and the mud and the filth of life? Which nature do you nurture? See, that raven was completely miserable inside of the Ark. I mean, Noah's making it eat bird seed.

Every day wondering, surely one of these animals is gonna die. Surely Noah could find a way to give me some rotting flesh. Flesh every day on the Ark. Despise Noah. Despise the Ark. And when that first opportunity came to get out and get away, do his own thing, he couldn't wait to get out there amongst the dying and the death of the world. He couldn't wait to get to the party scene. He couldn't wait to get to the sin. And we could spend time talking about lust and we could spend time talking about drugs and addiction and all that. But let's just talk about a few more things that sometimes we find ourselves drawn to the negativity, drawn to the criticism, the critical spirit, drawn to the gossip. The Bible even says that one of the places that's reserved in hell is for the cowardice. Being a coward, being easily intimidating, shrinking back. That's not what you and I are born for. That's a raven nature. That's a nature that just waits for the things to die and feeds off of the death of things. That nature of a raven can't wait to get away from the ark. The spirit of building, the spirit of accomplishing, the spirit of doing something, the spirit of mission, the spirit of the Great Commission, it wants to get away.

And the second that that raven got out of that ark, it probably started singing free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last, finally, I get to have some fun, finally, I get to do it my way, finally, I'm not under the heavy hand of Noah. I knew there was more outside the ark. I knew there was some fun out here. That Noah is boring, that Noah doesn't know how to have fun, goes out, looks down and sees the bloated body of a hippopotamus, the bloated body of a giraffe, I'm thinking safari because I was in South Africa this week. I went and preached a men's conference and then preached at a church, which by the way, it was so powerful. I thank God for America, for sure. But God is moving there and they let me and Lauren, they had a connection and so we saw all those things. So he looks down, that raven looks down, there that rhino is, there that elephant is, and that old raven couldn't wait to get into the death with its claws and its feet, rip it apart and with its beaks start feeding on the blood and on the filth. This is living, this is what life's about. This is so much better out here than it was on the ark. There's nothing like this in there. There's nothing like this in, around Noah. You see a raven begins to despise the life of God. It despises the ark, that raven nature. If it's not kept in check, we'll start to scream out. It'll start to scream, I'm miserable in this God stuff. I'm miserable in, in the things of God. I'm really hungry for something out there, something I cannot get in here. And today I want to just say, that is why we're in this place. We're in this place because it's the safety of the ark, not necessarily a building, but we're in the safety of, of worshiping God where we're praising God, where we're under the authority and the God breathed inspiration of scripture and the spoken word of God and,

and privately and personally you can worship. And there's powerful promises connected to the life of worship and the life of praise and the life of prayer. There's powerful promises attached to that privately and personally, but there's even greater promises attached to the same things. When we come together corporately, when you worship and you praise, and we hear the word and we regard the word, there's power, there's promises connected to things that can only happen corporately that cannot happen in the same way privately. I'm not saying one's better than the other. I'm saying they're both important. There's life in our gathering. There's life in our worship. There's life in his word. There is life in God's house. But if all you do is nurture the Raven nature, it's a matter of time. You'll want nothing to do with the arc. You'll want nothing to do with God's plan, nothing to do with his destiny, nothing to do with his call on your life. But there is another bird and that other bird, the dove, the Bible says she flew out there. And when she goes out, she's looking down and she's seeing the exact same things that the Raven saw, witnessing the same environment. It's the same smells. It's the same world. And I don't know for sure, but it's even possible that maybe the dove flew over and saw that Raven there ripping apart that hippopotamus and heard that Raven cry out to the dove, Hey, come on down here, dove. Caw, caw. You like that, don't you? Some of y'all were wondering off. I got your back.

Caw, caw. That's what the raven was saying in Hebrew, ka-ka-ha, which means come on down here, dove. Come enjoy this mess. Get away from Noah, get away from what God's call is and what God's standard is. Get away from all that. Stay away from the ark. Come on down here, this is so good. You're missing it in there. This is incredible. There's nothing like this on the ark and the Bible is clear that she flew over all the same waters, all the same death that the dove or the raven flew over, but the Bible says she did not let the sole of her feet find any place to land. You see, having a dove nature means there are some places and some people and some activities, you have to say my feet don't belong there. I've got to guard my walk with God. I've got to guard where these feet go. I've got to nurture the dove nature. The Bible says we're partakers of his divine nature. I've got to partake. I've got to nourish my life in my dove nature. You see, the dove knew I'm a dove. The dove understood I'm not a raven. I'm not like other birds. I'm not trying to be like other birds.

I'm not drawn to the things that other birds are drawn to. I hear their cries. I hear their Instagram post or their TikTok post or their Facebook. I see all the things that they're saying, this is what life is all about, but that's not my nature. I have a dove nature. And because that's my nature, there's some places the soles of my feet will find no place. See, it matters what you do. It matters what you go. It matters what you watch. It's nurturing either one of two natures, your raven nature or your dove nature. You see, if you do not believe that God would judge your disobedience, if you do not think that God in some way withdraws his blessing from your life in disobedience, then you underestimate how great the blessings of God are when you find a way to walk in obedience. It's not that we won't fall. I wanna be clear. It's not that that raven nature doesn't exist. It exists. It's there. It's real. It's pull is there. It's cry is there. It's longings are there. It's not like I'm up here with angel wings

budding underneath this shirt. I understand the raven nature as much as anybody in this room. I'm not above it. I go through times when the dove nature begins to be starved and the dove nature isn't getting what it needs from me. But the key is the dove always returned back to the ark and always wanted to be in the hands of Noah. It's so important that you and I understand that when that dove went back to the window of that ark, those faithful hands of Noah that had saved it and protected it from the storms of life, those same hands reached out, grabbed that dove and pulled the dove close. But those hands may have been hesitant if those dove's feet were filthy from the death and the decay of this world. It maybe would have put a distance there, a hesitation there. But because those feet were clean, right? That's why David said, create in me a clean heart. I want clean hands and a pure heart. It's because that's the dove nature. And isn't it interesting when God went to choose a bird, of all the birds he could choose, and he said, I want this bird, the favorite bird of God. Of all the birds that there are, God has a favorite bird. It's not the mighty eagle. It's not the colorful parrot. His favorite bird, and I believe this is where it began.

Just for your consideration, I'm not making a theology of it, but I'm saying right here is where the dove stood out to God. Something different about that one. And I wanna take that bird and I'm gonna raise it up. And when I want people to know what my spirit is like, I'm gonna show them the dove. When Jesus was baptized, the Bible says that the dove, speaking of the Holy Spirit, descended on him and remained. Isn't that beautiful? Of all the birds that can get God's approval in this way, the dove stood out. You see this begin in Genesis chapter eight. You go into all the Old Testament sacrifices in the book of Leviticus, when God wanted to provide sacrifices for the sins of people. Of all the birds that he would accept for a sin sacrifice. Again, he didn't accept the eagle. He definitely didn't accept the raven or the vulture. He didn't ask for an ostrich. If someone couldn't afford the blood of a bull or a ram or a goat, then they were to bring a turtle dove. And that would be what God would say, I accept the dove as a sacrifice. I accept that. I accept there's something about the dove, I like it. That dove is something I'm drawn to,

my spirit is drawn to, my favor is drawn to it. I accept that differently than I accept other natures. You get to Leviticus chapter 14, and God gives this instruction. He says, I want you to go out and grab a vessel to the high priest of earthen vessel. So this would be a vessel made of clay and dirt. Of course, we know that the Bible actually says in the New Testament that we're that earthen vessel, that the excellency may be of his power, not of ourselves. So God fills us with his power, puts his spirit in us. So he said, take that vessel of clay and earth and pour water in it. And then he said, after you've done that, I want you to go get two pieces of cedar wood. Isn't this interesting? Way before the invention of crucifixion, that instrument of death was ever even thought of, God said in Leviticus 14, I want you to go get two pieces of cedar wood. And I want you to lay them over each other. I want you to grab the dove and I want you to stretch that dove's wings over the cedar wood. And I want you to wrap one wing with a scarlet thread, another wing with a scarlet thread, wrap his feet with that scarlet thread, wrap that dove's head with a scarlet thread and then sacrifice it. Take the blood of that sacrifice,

that dove that's there, and I want you to pour the blood into that water that's in the earthen vessel. And then I want you to go get two more pieces of cedar wood, overlay them, go get another dove, stretch its wings out on the cedar wood and wrap its wings in that scarlet thread and its feet and its head. But this time, I don't want you to sacrifice it. The sacrifice has already been made. But now I want you to take that dove and I want you to take that cedar wood that the dove is tied to and I want you to fully immerse it in the water that's in the earthen vessel. And then I want you to pull it out. And when you pull it out, the instruction was to go up on a high mountain and release that dove to set it free. You see, the first dove represents Jesus Christ if you're a little slow. That he was the one that was sacrificed and it's his blood and it's his spirit that fills this earthen vessel. And it's because we've been dipped in that blood and it's because we've been baptized in his spirit. It's because of those reasons, God takes us up to the high places and he sets us free. And he sets us free. And he sets us free.

from all the death and the destruction and the judgments of this world. And he sets us free. And he sets us free. And the most beautiful thing about the dove in the story with Noah is the final place that we see it released. It goes out and with its mouth, it grabs an olive branch. Notice God sends it. The dove doesn't grab it with his feet. He grabs it with his mouth. The olive branch for olives oil comes from the anointing, the Holy Spirit. Notice that he grabs that olive branch with his mouth and then he flies it back to Noah announcing the waters of judgment have receded. There's a new day. There's a new season. God's got something brand new for us. But when he wanted you and I to know where the anointing wants to touch, it touched the mouth of the dove. 2000 years ago, God said, celebrate Bethlehem. Remember Calvary. Remember that he was stretched wide on that cedar wood and that his hands and his feet were nailed to the cross. Remember that. Remember that he didn't stay on the cross. Remember that there was an empty tomb. Remember all that. Celebrate that. Rejoice in all that. But it didn't stop there. There's something called Pentecost. There's something called the upper room that Jesus said, make sure you go there. Wait in Terry. He gave them the invitation to make sure they didn't do anything in life until the Holy Spirit descended. And there the mighty Russian wind filled the room and divided tongues as fire set on them. And notice what the olive branch touched again. It touched the tongue and the lips of those people. And they spoke with another language as the spirit gave them utterance, a heavenly language that when they didn't know what to pray, the Holy Spirit made intercession through them. And one of the most beautiful things about the apostle Peter, when he gets up and he preaches on the day of Pentecost, that sermon that the apostle Simon Peter preach talks about the cross, talks about the resurrection. And if we were to list all the key points, all these things, we'd say, yeah, the resurrection matters. Yeah. The second coming matters. Yeah. One of the things that mentions is the gift of the Holy spirit. And he said this very clearly, this is for you talk about the Holy spirit being poured out in the last days, your sons and daughters will prophesy. He said this, this is for you, your family speaking to the 3000 that got saved. And for all of those who are a far off, see God through his spirit knew there would be a day we would sit in an American church and they'd say, oh, that Holy spirit stuff is weird. They call

it snake stuff. So you'd be scared of it. And Tim, that's just the spirit of the devil. He's not a snake is he's a dove. She, the beautiful dove of the Holy spirit is nothing to be scared of the Holy spirit, the gifts of the spirit, all that the Holy spirit, that's what the day of Pentecost is about. That's what today is, is the day of Pentecost. It is about the dove and the dove will never do anything, but bless your life. Amen.