Sermon Tone Analysis

Some things in life we just have to wait for.

As I entered my senior year of college I realized that somewhere along the line I had made a very big mistake.

One of my advisors had sold me on the prestige of a bachelor of arts degree over a bachelor of science degree.

I still don’t really understand it, but it was something about how a bachelor of arts degree is more well-rounded; I don’t know, no one has ever appreciated or commented on my bachelor of arts, so whatever.

Anyway, the thing about a bachelor of arts that makes it more well-rounded is that the student takes more general education classes instead of classes that are directly tied to their major.

So instead of one year of generals, you end up with more.

Well, I really liked the classes that were connected with my Bible major and pastoral studies minor, so I took most of those in my sophomore and junior years.

That left mostly generals left, classes like sociology, American literature, and an extra math class.

It was horrible.

Waiting for graduation was almost unbearable.

All I wanted to do was graduate, but I had all these classes that seemed pointless to me standing in my way.

Waiting can be so difficult.

Noah had to wait too.

Noah thoroughly obeyed God when he built the ark, brought the animals and his family on it, and got on to let God deliver them, but salvation didn’t come immediately.

In order to experience the fullness of his salvation, Noah had to wait through forty days and nights of rain and 150 days of water covering the earth.

Essentially 4 months living in a boat with animals, a reality that hasn’t been lost on those with a penchant for sarcasm.

It couldn’t have been easy to wait

If God had saved Noah from the destruction of the flood but hadn’t saved him from the confines of the boat, would God have kept His word?

I don’t think so.

God promised that He would save Noah and his family, and when God saves people, He saves them completely.

He doesn’t just save them halfway or from part of the danger.

He saves them from all of the danger.

may seem like tedious details, with how many days Noah was on the ark and the birds that he sent out, but these details have a point.

All of the details point to at least one great truth: God entirely saves those who trust Him.

God saved Noah and his family entirely, not just from destruction but also from the boat, and seeing God’s salvation in the life of Noah must lead us follow Noah’s example and wait patiently for His salvation.

So please take this truth home with you this week:

God entirely saves those who trust Him; therefore, we must wait patiently for His salvation.

How do we wait patiently for God’s salvation?

Two components of waiting for God’s salvation.

Two essentials of waiting for God’s salvation.

Rest in God’s promise (v1-11)

Noah’s resting in God’s promise is in v1-11

This passage starts off by saying that God remembered Noah.

Now this might be a bit confusing to us because we might be picturing God up in heaven, suddenly remembering Noah, like, “Oh, that’s right, Noah’s still in the ark. .

.”

That isn’t what it means that God remembered Noah.

"’God's remembering always implies his movement toward the object. . . .

The essence of God's remembering lies in his acting toward someone because of a previous commitment.’

To say ‘God remembered Noah’ is to say that God faithfully kept his promise to Noah by intervening to end the flood.”

God promised to deliver Noah from his destructive flood, and part of that promise implied that God would deliver him back to dry land.

This is God’s promise, and as Noah lived on the ark, he rested in that promise.

And this required a lot of resting.

The text emphasizes several times the amount of time that was passing as Noah waited for the water to subside.

God stopped the rain and the floodgates and He caused a wind, but it still took five months for the water to decrease enough for the ark to rest on the mountain tops.

And even then there was more waiting forty days here, seven days there, then seven days again.

Noah kept waiting.

I see an important analogy to our lives in these things.

We have many promises from God recorded in Scripture, and some of these promises require us to wait for their realization.

Paul expresses confidence in God’s promise in ,

But the reality of this promise will never be realized until our death or the day of Christ’s return whichever comes first.

Sometimes waiting for the realization of this promise can be discouraging as we long for God’s good work in us to be completed.

Instead we struggle against temptation and face frustration and discouragement as we sin.

Although the Scripture doesn’t give us a glimpse inside the ark, I’m sure those days of waiting grew difficult as Noah and his wife and his boys and their wives waited for God to complete his salvation, but God gave them little choice but to wait.

He promised to deliver them completely and He would fulfill His word, but He would do it in His time.

This is the same with the good work He is doing in us.

Another promise that we must wait for is referenced in 2 Peter.

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Peter even recognizes here that we will be mocked because we continue to wait for God’s promise to return, deliver us, and judge humanity again.

Perhaps longing for our own vindication and deliverance we might grow discouraged with the way society is headed, the influence it is having on our children, and our longing for peace, but we must wait.

For God has appointed a day in which he will deliver the righteous and judge the wicked.

That day might not come when we want it to, but it will come and we can wait.

God promised it, and we can be sure that it will happen.

Based on the Noah’s narrative of the flood we can be sure that God completely saves those who trust Him.

God completely saved Noah from the flood not only by putting him in the ark, but also by landing him safely on the mountains.

God will completely save you from sin by completing the good work He’s begun in you and by eventually judging the wicked again, but we must rest in the promises of God instead of doubting or becoming discouraged because we don’t see the result we desire.

God’s promises are sure; rest in them; they will be realized.

But there is a second component of waiting patiently for God’s salvation.

Not only must we rest in God’s promises, secondly, we must work with God’s provisions.

Allen P. Ross.

Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis (Kindle Location 2341).

Kindle Edition.

Work with God’s provision (v6-19)

Look at v6-19; in v6-11 Noah sends out the raven and the dove waiting for evidence that the earth was inhabitable.

Then in v12

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Here we see that Noah did not just sit around the ark twiddling his thumbs waiting for dry land to appear or God to speak again.

Noah took action.

He sends out the raven, who comes and goes from the ark as he pleases.

We aren’t told much about the raven, but many people assume that the raven was scavenging off of the carcasses of the dead; if that is the case, I assume that the raven was also bringing some of the meat back to the ark to help feed the other meat-eating animals and birds.

This was Noah’s way of providing while he waited for God.

He also sent out the dove three times to see if the land was inhabitable.

The first time the dove comes immediately back; one week later, she has a green olive branch in her beak; then one week later still, she never returned.

Another action that Noah takes is removing the covering of the ark and checking for himself regarding the state of the water.

And finally, we see a repetition of the theme of Noah obeying God, when he follows the clear instructions to get out of the ark and bring the animals with you.

Now you might be thinking: “Wait, Pastor Rory, I thought that you said that we must wait patiently for God’s salvation.

How are we supposed to wait patiently for God’s salvation while we are working with God’s provision?

Are working and waiting opposites?”

One day this week, we planned to eat brats for dinner, but just as everything was getting done, we realized that we didn’t have any ketchup.

Because it seems like we always have ketchup, we had failed to check earlier in the week and were now faced with the reality of eating our brats without ketchup.

A reality that most of us found unacceptable.

So, I volunteered to run out and get some ketchup.

While I was away, there were still a few things that needed to be done to complete the meal, so Christa and the kids all worked together to finish those things, while they waited.

You see they worked and waited at the same time.

Just as waiting for me to return with the ketchup didn’t mean my family had to sit and do nothing the entire time, so also, waiting for God never means that we sit and do nothing.

Noah didn’t sit and do nothing and neither should you.

Consider again the promise that I referenced earlier from .

The promise is: God began a good work, and He will finish it.

Now consider what Paul says later in Philippians about this same reality.

Notice the instruction Paul gives concerning our salvation, work it out.

That means that there is a certain responsibility that we have in regard to the completion of the good work that God has begun in us.