God Remembered

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

Have you ever felt abandoned by God? Have you ever felt like He’s forgotten you? I’m pretty sure that we’ve all felt that way at times. Even David, a man after God’s own heart often expressed those feelings in some of the Psalms he authored. The good news is that if you’ve ever felt like that, today’s passage - Genesis 8 - is for you.

Go ahead and open up your Bibles to Genesis chapter 8. Now I want you to read the first three or four words in verse 1. The exact wording may vary slightly depending on what version you’re using. It might start with “but” or “and”, but I think the rest of that phrase will be exactly the same regardless of the version. What is that phrase?

That’s right - “...God remembered Noah...”

As we’ll see this morning, the idea that God remembered Noah ought to be an encouragement to all of us. As we’ll discover this morning together, the idea of God remembering His people is not just limited to Noah. It is something that God does throughout the Bible and something He still does today.

But the idea that God “remembered” Noah raises an interesting question doesn’t it? Does that mean God can forget? Is He like some of us that forget where we put the car keys, or our anniversary, or the most frightening of all - where did I put the remote? We’ll return to that question in just a moment when we talk more about what it means when God remembers.

Tension

But first, I’m going to take a poll this morning. In order to do that I’m going to put in a shameless plug for our church app. So if you have your phone and have the TFC app installed go ahead and take out your phone and go to the messaging section. Here is where our church family can communicate throughout the week. It’s a great place to share prayer requests, ask questions about our Bible readings or just let others know what God is doing in your life. Once you get there, you’ll see a poll that I just posted a few minutes ago. Go ahead and submit your answer. If you don’t have the app, the poll question is on the screen and you can write down your answer on your sermon outline.

Subsplash poll: How long were Noah and his family on the ark?

40 days

100 days

150 days

1 year

1 year and 17 days

2 years

Truth

We’ll see the correct answer to that poll in a minute. It’s actually very easy to find in the text. So go ahead and follow along as I read Genesis chapter 8:

Genesis 8 ESV

1 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. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. 6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore. 13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. 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. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

First, let’s answer the poll question.

If you go back to the previous chapter, we can determine that Noah entered the ark when he was 600 years, 2 months and 10 days old. Here in chapter 8, verses 13-14, we see Noah and his family left the ark when he was 601 years, 2 months and 27 days old. So some simple math gives us the answer to our question:

1 year and 17 days

I’m pretty sure that answer shocks a lot of us. I know that personally for a long time, I just assumed that the flood lasted 40 days and 40 nights and then it was over. But the fact that Noah and his family were on the ark for over a year has some very important implications for how we handle the difficulties we face in life.

Like the entire flood narrative, this passage creates as many questions as it answers - including “where did all the water go?” And it would be real easy - and honestly a lot of fun - to go down some of those rabbit trails. And believe me, if you want to do that you’ll find a lot of information out there to help you do that. But you’ll also run into two big problems. 1) There are almost limitless ideas out there and none of them can be proven, and more importantly, 2) none of that really helps us live our lives on a day to day basis.

So I want to focus this morning on the two things that really matter from this passage:

What does “God remembered Noah” mean and what does that mean for us?

How did Noah respond to that remembrance and what can we learn from that?

Let’s begin with the first question:

What does “God remembered Noah” mean and what does that mean for us?

This is the first time in the Bible where God is said to “remember” someone, but it’s not the last. God also remembers Abraham, Lot, Rachel, Hannah and the Jewish people.

But what does that mean exactly? I think we’d all agree that an all-knowing God is not capable of forgetting in the same way that we do. So it can’t mean that somehow Noah had completely slipped God’s mind and God looked down from heaven and said “Look at Noah floating around in that ark. I had forgotten all about him”.

If we look at the surrounding context, there is a consistent pattern every single time the Bible tells us that God “remembers”. That phrase is always followed by some sort of action or work on behalf of God’s people. Or to put it another way, when God “remembers”, He acts to fulfill a previous promise He made.

That is exactly what happens here. Let’s briefly look at...

THREE WAYS GOD “REMEMBERED” NOAH

...and how that can help us see how God remembers us today.

He stopped the storm

In verse 2, we see that God closed up the fountains of the deep and the heavens, so that the waters quit rising. There is a sense in which God’s judgment had finally come to an end, although it would take a long time for the effects of the flood to go away completely.

He sent a wind

There is a hint here that God is not only going to just stop the storm, but He is going to bring restoration. Here we’re taken right back to the creation account in Genesis 1 where the Spirit of God was hovering over the earth. The word translated “Spirit” there is the same Hebrew word translated “wind” here in chapter 8. Obviously this time, God doesn’t create the earth from nothing, but the repeated use of that Hebrew word gives us a sense that God is going to restore His creation in some way.

He spoke

At least from what we can see in the text, God hadn’t spoken to Noah since He instructed Him to enter the ark with his family and all those animals over a year earlier. But here in verses 16-17, God speaks to Noah again and tells him to leave the ark. He also tells Noah and his family to “be fruitful and multiply” - the same command He gave to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1, which is another hint that God is going to restore the earth.

As we saw last week, the ark account is a picture of Jesus and the salvation He provides for us. Today’s passage furthers that idea by reminding us that the most important way that God remembers us is to save us through faith in Jesus. And that act of remembering has some striking parallels to what God did for Noah:

The very moment that we put our faith in Jesus, God brings His judgment to an end, just like He brought the storm to an end for Noah. We are immediately clothed with the righteousness of Jesus and spared from the wrath of God.

Then He begins to restore our lives. While the flooding itself only lasted 40 days, it took a lot longer than that for the wind to dry up those waters. That’s a great picture of how God works in our lives. Even when we’re no longer subject to God’s judgment because of our faith in Jesus, the process of sanctification, where we become more and more like Jesus, is a life long process that won’t be complete until we leave this earth and go to dwell permanently in His presence.

God speaks to us. He does that continually through His Word and by the Holy Spirit who dwells permanently in our lives. Just like God directed Noah by speaking to him, He directs our lives through His Word and His Spirit.

So if you’ve put your faith in Jesus, then I can assure you that God has, and will continue to remember you by working in your life. I pray that will be an encouragement to you whenever you might feel like God had abandoned you or forgotten you.

Now that we’ve seen how God remembered Noah, let’s close our time by focusing on our second question:

How did Noah respond to that remembrance and what can we learn from that?

When Noah got off the ark, he had a lot of work to do. He needed to build a place to live. He needed to plant crops so he would have something to eat. And he had to get busy fulfilling God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, right? Plus he needed to post the videos of his trip on social media. But before he does any of those things, what does Noah do?

That’s right, he worships! That leads us to the main idea I want you to leave with today:

Because God remembers, I worship.

Remembered people ought to be worshiping people. And since we’re all remembered people, we also all need to be worshiping people. Obviously the topic of worship is way too big to tackle in one sermon, but when we take a look at how Noah worshipped here, we can learn four simple things about worship that we can apply in our own worship.

Application

WHEN GOD REMEMBERS, MY WORSHIP MUST BE:

Immediate

Noah’s very first response to God remembering him was to build an altar and worship. Although he had a lot of other very important things to do, he put them all off until after he took time to respond to God in worship. For Noah, worship was clearly priority number one.

As we’ve already learned, even if we don’t see it, Jesus remembers us every single day. So that means that every single day worship needs to be our first priority. And that is true on two levels, both of which Jesus demonstrated for us:

First, we need to be worshiping in our personal lives. We consistently see Jesus making personal worship a priority. When He had an especially busy day or an important decision to make, He went away to a quiet place and communed with His Father. And when God worked through Him and His ministry, He immediately offered thanks to God.

We also need to make corporate worship a priority. We see Jesus attending the synagogue every Sabbath and participating in the Jewish feasts that had be prescribed by God. Although Jesus certainly did not face all the other alternatives and distractions that our culture offers us today, worshiping God with others was more important to Him than anything else He could have been doing.

Because God remembers, I worship.

And that worship needs to be an immediate priority.

Grateful

I don’t know about you, but after I’d been on that ark for over a year, I’m not sure my first inclination would have been gratitude. I mean I get impatient if someone gets in the self checkout line with a basket full of groceries or it takes me two lights to get through an intersection. If I had been on the ark with all those smelly animals for a year, I think it would have been well within my rights to complain to God.

But fortunately Noah didn’t look at things that way. He was genuinely grateful that God had preserved him and his family and all those animals and partnered with him in the process of restoring the earth.

I want to be more like Noah. When I’m standing in that line in the grocery store I want to be grateful that God has provided enough money to buy groceries, even if it takes forever to check out. When I’m stuck in traffic, I want to be grateful that I have a working vehicle to drive and gas in the tank. And most importantly, I want to do what I’ve often referred to as “re-gospeling” myself each day so that I’m continually grateful for the way Jesus has remembered me.

Because God remembers, I worship.

And that worship needs to be characterized by gratitude.

Sacrificial

Admittedly, Noah had a lot of animals on that ark. But I have to believe that after over a year on the ark, his food supplies were getting pretty low. Who could have blamed Noah if he looked at one of those black angus cows and thought, “I’m going to save that one so I can have some big juicy rib eyes”. But rather than hoarding any of those animals for himself, Noah made a sacrifice to the Lord. And it was no small sacrifice. In verse 20 we see that he took some of “every” clean animal and “every” clean bird. So not only did that require Noah to sacrifice a significant portion of his possessions, but think of how much time and effort that required.

I’m reminded here of an account from the life of David. When an angel commanded him to build an altar on the threshing floor of Oman the Jebusite, Oman offered to give the land to David. But listen to David’s response:

1 Chronicles 21:24 ESV

24 But King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will buy them for the full price. I will not take for the Lord what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

When He remembered us, Jesus did not offer a sacrifice that cost Him nothing. He willingly gave up His life for us.

What does your worship cost you? Are you being generous with your time, your talents and your material possessions? Or are you just giving God the leftovers?

Because God remembers, I worship.

And that worship needs to be sacrificial.

God-centered

I don’t think any of us can even begin to imagine the devastation that faced Noah and his family when they got off the ark. The earth would have had a completely look than it did a year earlier. There would have been rotting, stinking dead bodies of both people and animals everywhere. It would have been so easy for Noah to look around and be really discouraged, and maybe even a bit mad at God for putting him through all of this.

But there is something very interesting in the text here that reveals that Noah was much more focused on God than on his circumstances. Three times in the first part of the chapter we see God acting - God remembered, God sent a wind, God spoke. In each of those cases, the Hebrew word elohim is used and it is translated God. That Hebrew word can either refer to “the God” or it can also refer to “gods” - with a little g - context determines.

But look at verse 20. There we see that Noah built an altar to whom? That’s right - the LORD. That is the Hebrew word YHWH and ii is always translated LORD - all upper case in most English Bibles. That is God’s personal covenant name. And in the next verse we read that the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma. Taken together, what we see here is that Noah was seeking a relationship with God. That was much more important than his circumstances. All I’m going to say here is that we would do well to follow that example.

Because God remembers, I worship.

And that worship needs to be focused on God, not my circumstances.

Action

My prayer this morning is that you know without a doubt that Jesus loves you and remembers you constantly. He proved that when He died on the cross so that you can have a relationship with Him. And as we said earlier, remembered people ought to be worshiping people. And I’m convinced that all of us, and I’m including myself, can become better worshippers.

So as we close this morning, I want to challenge all of us to commit to taking one practical step this week to make both our personal and corporate worship more immediate, sacrificial, grateful or God-focused, Maybe God has already put something on your heart this morning. If so, go ahead and write it down right now. If not, take some time to pray about that this week and then respond as God leads you.

Because God remembers, I worship.

Inspiration

Our passage this morning proves that God did not forget or abandon Noah. And Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection are proof that He remembers us and that He has not forgotten or abandoned us either, no matter what we feel like. That is why we worship.