But God Remembered Noah

Introduction

Show/Explain Cambodia photos

Overall, we had a great privilege of being able to help the kids and missionaries in Cambodia. It’s always a great privilege to take part in the kingdom work of God and being able to show God’s love to others.

But I really want to make clear that it is important that we don’t develop a ‘Messiah complex’ from this. We can’t think of ourselves as the great privileged better off people from a first-world nation, swooping into save the poor starving children in the third world country of Cambodia. This is wrong for a number of reasons:

The kind of mindset is creating an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality. We are not the great saviours, and they are not the poor people in need of rescuing. We shouldn’t have this air of superiority about ourselves. We are no better than them; we are all one people of God, who just happen to be born in different countries under different socioeconomic situations.

And secondly, it puts us in the center of the picture. We must remember that even though we are on the ground doing the work, it is ultimately God who is working through us. If he wanted to, he could do it himself, but he chooses to use imperfect people like us to do his kingdom work. God takes center-stage, not us. He is the one who deserves all the thanks and glory, not us. He is the great saviour, of not only them, but of us also. Even while we are in mission in Cambodia, God not only helps them, but us also.

And in today’s passage as well, we see God taking center stage. We see a great act of saving in God saving Noah from the flood. And from this story we learn 3 things about God:

A God who remembers

A God who saves

A God who is worshipped

So let’s read Genesis 8 together.

Genesis 8:1–22

God Remembers

So how does this passage start? It starts with this amazing phrase ‘But God remembered Noah...’. Read Genesis 8:1 “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark.”

This is such a key and central verse in this passage, because if you read and map out the entire story of Noah, this verse is the hinge, the turning point where everything changes. Before this phrase, it is complete judgement and destruction. After this phrase it is complete restoration and healing. So clearly the author put this verse right in the middle, to really highlight it and show us its importance.

But what does it mean that God remembered? Does it mean God forgot about Noah, and all of a sudden he remembered Noah last minute? Can God forget?

God cannot forget because God is unchanging. He doesn't forget one moment and remember the next. God is eternal, he is perfect, and nothing about him, even His memory, ever changes. What it really means by ‘God remembering’ is not God recalling certain facts, but rather is God’s complete faithfulness and commitment to His promises. When it says ‘God remembered’ it’s reminding us that God never forgets His promises to us. His promises of goodness towards His creation, His promises of love, His promises of comfort, His promises of blessing, His promises of eternal life. This language of God ‘remembering’ is like a window or glimpse we get into the very heart that God has towards us: one of perfect love. A love that always has us on His mind - the very mind of God! - a love that is 100% committed to keeping his promises. That’s why in this passage, when God ‘remembers’, immediately we see this dramatic change from judgement to salvation. Because God made a promise of good to mankind, he keeps His promise and offers His hope and love alongside His salvation.

(‘zakar’ is covenant language, indicating covenant fidelity; NAC, Mathews)

So what a wonderful hope we have in such a God - a God who remembers. A God who is 100% committed and faithful to us. Unlike God, we are so fickle and can’t commit to even the smallest things - how many times have you promised your parents something and not done it? I’m sure nearly everyone. But although we can’t even commit to small promises, God commits himself completely to even the grandest promises. This is why our God is a greater hope than anything else this world can offer. We have a living, unchanging, eternal, all powerful God, who even though we are but dust, actually remembers us - He has a heart that is always reaching out to us, desiring to bless and love us, while all our other hopes in life, even ourselves and our own abilities, are prone to change, decay, and powerlessness.

This is the very mind and heart of God that the Bible is revealing to us. So no matter what our circumstances in life may look like, we must remember, that we have a God that always remembers us and His promises to us.

God Saves

So God ‘remembering’ is our great hope in our lives. But it is a great hope because when God ‘remembers’, it is not just a mental act recalling some facts, but when God remembers, it is always linked to a great action. In this passage, the action is God saving Noah and his family. And through it we can learn some things about how God acts in our lives.

Firstly, what this passage teaches us is that when we are rescued from certain things or situations in our lives, it really is God at work.

Read Genesis 8:1–3 “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated,”

These verses really want to make clear that it was not by chance or just by natural forces that the flood was reversed and Noah was saved; it is at pains to tell us that it really was God that saved Noah through His supernatural power. In Gen 8:1 we see God blow a great wind over the earth to subside the waters, just as His life giving Spirit was hovering over the waters in the beginning of creation. And in Gen 8:2, just as the waters of the heavens and the deep springs of the earth burst open to flood the earth, God completely seals them shut to reverse the great flood. The author of Genesis wants to make really clear that God is the agent of salvation - all credit is to go to God, not ourselves, not fate, not other gods, not random chance.

And just as Noah was to recognise this and remember, we are also to remember this. We must remember that we have a God who powerfully works in our lives because it is so easy to forget. Although it may not seem like it at times, our lives and the things that happen are not by random chance, but all things are in the hands of our loving and powerful God, who can flood or empty the heavens and the earth at the mere speaking of His word.

So when things are going wrong, just like when Noah was in the flood, what comfort and peace we can have resting in the truth that no matter how our lives appear, even in the middle of a flood, our all powerful, good, and promise keeping God is at work in our lives, always. We are safe in the ark, in His hands, even in the middle of the storm. He is not a God that is distant, just leaving us alone to figure out our own lives by ourselves, but He is deeply involved, closely and intimately at work in our lives even though we can’t see Him.

And when things are going well in our lives, we must never take credit for ourselves, because just as this passage shows, it is always our powerful God who is at work, who has brought about these things in our lives.

The other thing this passage teaches us about how God acts in our lives, is that God acts in the way He desires, not in the way we want. Wouldn’t it have been nice for Noah if God clicked His fingers and the waters went away instantly? But what happens instead? We don’t time to read through all the verses again but we see that after 150 days of the flood, the ark finally come to settle on top of Mt. Ararat. And then Noah has to wait almost another 2 months, during which time he had to go through this whole process of sending out a raven, a dove which comes back because it had nowhere to land, then he sends out the dove again which brings back a fresh olive leaf, then he finally sends out the dove again which doesn’t return.

God Is Worshipped

What this tells us about God is that although He is always for us and works in our lives, He doesn’t always work in a way we might want or we might expect. And we will never know why God acts in certain ways in our lives - who are we to question the ways of God? But what we can know is that the heart behind the actions of God, even though they are mysterious and sometimes don’t make sense to us, is completely trustworthy, as our God is one who remembers us and never forgets us and His love towards us. So put your trust and hope in who God is, and His unchanging character, rather than being swayed and being at the mercy of the fragile and constantly changing circumstances of your life.

God Is Worshiped

Finally, this passage shows us that God is not only someone who remembers, and saves, but He is a God that is to be worshiped. After God’s great act of bringing the floodwaters down, what’s the very first thing that Noah does? Read Genesis 8:20 “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.”

The first thing Noah does is that he gets on his knees and worships God. The first thing Noah does is not getting food, not stretching his legs after being stuck in an ark for over 200 days, not building a house. The first thing he does is he worships God. This passage shows us the centrality, the importance of worship in our lives. Worship is not something we just add on at the end of the week. It’s not an optional extra. It’s at the very heart of our lives. It’s the goal, the purpose of our lives. It’s the goal and purpose of all creation. Everything that lives and breathe has been made to give glory and worship to our Creator. The scene of Noah worshipping God after being off the ark is as if everything has come to a standstill. Everything in the moment is frozen, in awe of God. It reminds me of Psalm 46:10 “10 “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”” In response to God’s works in our lives, we are meant to be still, and be in awe, gaze and be amazed at who our great God is. So in all that we so, in every day and moment of our lives, we are to give glory and worship our all powerful, all remembering, all saving Creator.

This passage also shows us that worship can be costly. There aren’t many animals left on the earth, but Noah sacrifices some of the clean animals that are remaining on the earth to worship God. That’s how central and important worship should be in our lives. Our God is a God worthy of our best, the most precious portion of our time, effort, money, resources, attention. But we must remember that even what we offer to God in worship is not something that we offer purely from ourselves, as if we deserve some sort of credit or reward - read Genesis 7:2–3 “Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.” We see God instructing Noah of taking extra pairs of animals that are used in sacrifice. So we learn that even what we worship with has been provided as a gift from God! Worship requires us to give our best, not only because God is deserving of our best, but also because He gives and provides all the best things we have in our lives.

Conclusion

So who is God to you? Is He someone who you just think about once a week, who seems distant, far away, impersonal, and uncaring? If that’s the case, today’s passage tells us otherwise. God is not a God who has forgotten about you, but He has always had you on His mind for all eternity, especially all the wonderful and good promises that he has made to all His children. Just think about that - He had remembered you from eternity, even before you existed. And He doesn’t just remember, but He acts, saves, works powerfully, and closely in your lives. So of course our God is deserving of the best, and the very purpose of our existence is to give glory and worship to our great Creator and Saviour in heaven. In response to the wonderful good works that He does in our lives, we are to always remember to give credit and thanks and worship to God, with the best of all that we have in our lives.

Opening song: How great is our God

Closing song: Still

Discussion questions:

Before today, what did you think about God? Did you think about Him a close and personal saviour? Or was He someone distant, and didn’t seem like that He was very involved in your life?

How has your thoughts about who God is changed after reading today’s passage?

What are you doing/ what can you do from now on to worship God in your life?