"But God Remembered"

INTRODUCTION:

Interest:

Today is day 34 of the stay at home order in Michigan and we learned this week that it will continue for most of us until the middle of May. I wonder how many of you are beginning to go a little bit stir crazy at this point. Most of us are used to being relatively active people, going and coming as we choose. Limiting our trips to the grocery store, not being able to go to other stores, working from home, and general isolation from friends and family has been a new and fairly difficult experience for us.

Involvement:

Yet, as I said this is day 34. Tonight, we're going to look at a family for which day 34 would still be in the warmup period of their isolation. At 34 days they were only getting started. Maybe our experience will help us relate a little bit more to what we see in our passage this evening.

Context:

We are coming back this evening, as you can see on the screen, to our series through Genesis. Last week we left Noah and his family floating in the Ark. We were told at the end of Genesis Chapter 7 that the water prevailed on the earth for 150 days.

Application

In case you find the math challenging…after all you have been cooped up in your house for 34 days so your math skills might be slipping…150 days is greater than 34 days. Do you ever wonder if Noah and his family started going stir crazy during their experience? After all, we have all been able to connect with other people during this time to some extent. We've seen each other through video calls, or we’ve talked to each other on the phone. We’ve joined together through Facebook sharing these live-stream services. At the very least, we’ve walked out of the house to get the mail and been able to see people driving down the street.

For Noah and his family there was no one else. They were well aware that everyone else had perished in the flood. Can you imagine what they were feeling? And imagine is all that we can do because the biblical text is completely silent about what went on within the Ark. We know, as our text last week told us, that Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives all entered the Ark, eight people in all. We know that the animals that God had chosen to preserve entered the Ark as well. We know that God shut the door of the Ark, sealing it for its protection. And we know that the Ark floated on the water. But what occurred inside dark during all these long days is not recorded.

Preview:

This evening we're coming back in our study at the end of these 150 days of silence. The earth is completely covered with water. The occupants of the Ark are secure within. And, as you can see from the title of the sermon, God is about to act once again.

The lesson that we will learn from our passage as God moves on behalf of Noah and his family is one that is very pertinent to us at this time. We so easily get impatient. We get frustrated when we are force to wait for things. This is why we need this lesson. The lesson we will learn this evening is that We must wait patiently for God’s deliverance.

Transition from introduction to body:

We must wait patiently for God’s deliverance.

This evening I'm going to break hard chapter into three sections. The first 3 verses will make up the first section, and in these verses we learn that…

BODY:

I. Deliverance begins with God

Deliverance begins with God. Read along with me these first 3 verses…<read Gen 8:1-3>.

Nothing happens for 450 days from the perspective of Noah and his family until God does something.Those in the Ark may have been safe but they are not yet been saved. That could not happen until God accomplish the rest of what is needed for their Salvation.

Transition:

In these verses there are two things that God does. The first is contained in the first 3 words…

A. God remembers His commitments

These are powerful words, “but God remembered.” When God remembers, it is not just a mental exercise. It is not as if something has slipped God's mind and has now come back to his attention. When it comes to God remembering, that always implies that He is being moved to do something based on a previous commitment that He has made. He is making a decision based on commitments. There is always a positive movement by God as He remember those to whom He has decided to extend grace and mercy. In Noah's case God remembers that He has chosen to save this family.

It is interesting that Moses uses the same phrasing here in verse one as he uses in Exodus chapter 2 verse 24 when he writes that God remembers His covenant with Abraham when the Israelites are groaning under their enslavement in Egypt. God's deliverance of Noah foreshadows the deliverance of the nation from Egypt. Remember, Moses is writing this while the nation is in the wilderness, having recently been rescued by God from their bondage. Moses is showing that their rescue is consistent with God's character.

Application

So, as we start thinking about this chapter, it is reasonable for us to ask ourselves what commitments do we have from God? Has God committed Himself to do anything for us? Has he decided to extend grace and mercy to us for any reason?

Of course, the answer is yes. God is committed to every one of us who know Jesus Christ as our personal savior. Because of His great love for His Son, God is committed to providing salvation for all of us who have our faith in him…salvation—the ultimate deliverance. God has promised to never leave us nor forsake us, but rather to be with us through all things. He has promised to provide a way by which we can escape any temptation that comes our way. He has promised to complete the spiritual transforming work that He began in us at the moment of our salvation. And He has promised an eternal home for us in His presence—we will dwell with our holy God for all eternity. God has promised all these things to us.

We should recognize this evening, from these important first three words in our chapter is that God remembers His commitment. Everything turns up on this truth. It doesn't matter what we are going through at this time, or how difficult our circumstances may be, because our God remembers His commitment. He has chosen to show us grace and mercy. Does that simple truth encourage you? It should.

Transition:

Deliverance begins with God. The first thing that God does to produce that deliverance is that He remembers His commitments. Secondly,…

B. God acts upon His commitments

The rest of verse 1 through verse 3 is filled with God's actions. When God decides to do something, He does it. He causes a wind to pass over the earth, He causes the sources of the water to cease. And He causes the water to begin receding from the earth.

Again, there is a little foreshadowing in the text here as the wind blowing over the earth aligns to Exodus 14:21 where God caused the wind to dry the divided Red Sea for the nation of Israel to escape from Pharaoh’s army. This also echoes the description of God's Spirit blowing over the surface of the waters in Genesis 1:2 since in the Hebrew the same word is used for “wind” and “spirit.”

Application

Obviously, the main lesson for us to learn is that we can have confidence that God will act upon His commitments. As we talked about last week, God will act according to His own timeline, but act he will. It is the task of faith to believe in that truth while we wait.

Transition:

Remember our main lesson? We must wait patiently for God’s deliverance. To do that we remember that deliverance begins with God. God remembers his commitments and then he acts upon his commitments.

The second section comma the largest portion of this chapter, teaches us a second truth. That is that…

II. Deliverance waits on God

Deliverance waits on God. Let’s read verses 4 all the way through verse 19….<read Gen 8:4–19>.

I suspect this is a story that we all know well. Remember how the Ark comes to rest on Mount Ararat, and how Noah sends out first the raven and then the dove to see if the land is dried up yet? You probably remember from Sunday School days how the first time the dove comes back without any success but then the second time he comes back with the olive branch signifying that plant life has begun to grow again. We know the story, but have we observed the main points that Moses is bringing out in the way that he writes it?

Transition:

I will not go through this section in depth, but I do want to point out two aspects that highlight what it means to wait on God for deliverance. First, it means that…

A. We wait for God’s actions

There were a lot of time factors given in the verses that we just read. It is difficult to line all of these factors up perfectly because we are not always sure if they are given sequentially or if some of the time frames include each other , but what is clear is that there is a lot of waiting involved.

The waiting begins with verse four when we're told the exact day that the Ark comes to rest up on the mountain of Ararat. But then there's immediately a gap of more time passing between verses 4 and 5 as the water recedes before Noah can see the top of mountains around him. In verse 6 he apparently waits for 40 days before he even attempts to look outside the Ark. Then after the dove came back the first time, we're told in verse 10 that he waits another seven days. In verse 12 after the dove comes back with the olive branch, Noah again waits another seven days. Finally in verse 13, after nearly a year on the Ark, Noah at last is able to open the window and look outside, but he still has to wait for almost two more months until God finally allows him and his family and the animals to leave the Ark at verse 14. This is a lot of waiting! A total of 1 year and 11 days since they all entered the Ark at the start of the flood.

Application

Do you like to wait? As I said at the beginning, we are only at day 34 of our rather lose stay-at-home restrictions compared to what Noah had to endure. Are you finding yourself antsy having to wait for the order to be lifted? We tend to be very impatient people. I wonder if Noah was impatient as well. And of course, he was not alone; there were 7 other people in that Ark with him. Do you think they might have gotten impatient along the way?

One curious element about our text is that we are given no insight whatsoever into Noah's thoughts. Noah it does not even speak in the text. All we see is that he waits, and he waits, and he waits. He waits for God to act as God dries up the land and prepares it for those on the Ark.

Are you willing to wait for God's actions? You may not have any idea what preparations God has underway for you while He calls on you to wait. Do you wait patiently when He calls you to wait?

Transition:

Deliverance waits on God. That begins as we wait for God's actions. Secondly, waiting must be combined with obeying God's commands.

B. We obey God’s commands

Noah never speaks, but he does act; He obeys God. In verse 16 God speaks. He tells Noah and the family too leave the Ark and to bring out everything that was living on the Ark. In verse 18 Noah does exactly as God says. In fact, once again Moses slows the narrative down , shifting into a low gear by repeating the extensive details of verses 16 and 17 a second time in verses 18 and 19. He wants us to focus on the fact that Noah did as God commanded. He did not act in any fashion independently of God's commands. Noah is a doer, not a talker.

One detail that I want to bring to your attention is that it is clear in these verses that God has prepared for those who were saved on the Ark to repopulate the earth. In verse 19, though, Moses uses the phrase, “by their families” referencing the groups that would take up this task of refilling the earth. This phrase obviously reminds us of the term “kinds” that we saw last week as these same animals entered the Ark, a term reflective of the creation account. At the same time, this phrase using this term “families” also points ahead to the genealogies of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, that will be coming in a couple of chapters as nations are established on the earth. The term also points ahead to God’s blessing of Abraham through which “all families,” same term in Gen 12:3, will be affected on the earth. Moses is creating a link here between the deliverance of Noah and God's future plans for humanity that are coming to fruition through the nation of Israel via the covenant with Abraham.

Application

I suspect that when I asked us a few minutes ago how we are doing when it comes to the business of waiting, that most of us had to admit that we do not do that very well. I wonder, though, how much better we do, if at all, when it comes to obeying God's commands. James tells us in James 1:22 that we are to be “doers of the word,” and not “merely hearers.” When God tells us exactly what we are to do in His word, do we obey? Of course, there are times for all of us where the answer to that question is no because we all sin at times. But what is the regular pattern of our lives? Deliverance that waits on God requires that we be prepared to obey God when the time arrives for us to act.

Illustration

For example, we know that God has commanded for us to share the gospel of His Son, the only way to have true deliverance from sin’s penalty, with those around us. How many times have you waited for an opportunity to share the gospel; you even prayed that God might give you the chance to share the gospel; but then the time comes when God gives you that chance do you share it? Do you act in obedience to God’s commands?

And I could multiply this question with many other commands that God gives us to obey. The Bible is filled with instructions, words from God that we are to obey.

Transition:

Deliverance waits on God. We wait for God's actions and then we obey God's commands. This is a key part of our main lesson, We must wait patiently for God’s deliverance.

In the final three verses we see one last element of deliverance,…

III. Deliverance generates worship of God

Let's read these verses…<read Gen 9:20–22>.

The very first thing that we were told about as Noah leaves the Ark is an grand expression of worship. Noah doesn't build a house as his first task. He doesn't start preparing a garden so that they can finally look forward to fresh vegetables again. He doesn't even take his wife for a long walk to stretch their legs outside the Ark…or least not that we're told in the text.

The first thing that we are told is that Noah builds an altar so that he can offer sacrifices to God of every clean beast that was on the ark. It is interesting that this is the first time that the Bible records the construction of an altar for worship. The specific sacrifice that Noah offers points forward to the sacrifices that the nation was given in Leviticus, specifically the whole burnt offering sacrifice. This was the sacrifice that represented the worshiper's total surrender and dedication to the Lord. It is the same sacrifice that is found again in Genesis when Abraham is asked to offer his son, Isaac, on an altar. Moses is demonstrating that the very first thing that Noah does is express his total devotion to God. Of course, the implication is that the nation of Israel should do likewise.

God, we are told, is pleased by Noah's sacrifice, He accepts it as a “soothing aroma.” As a result, God makes a promise. Assuming you have your bibles open, look at verse 21. Notice that the One to whom God makes the promise is “Himself.” God is not making a promise to Noah that might be thought to end when Noah's life passes. Rather, God is making one that is valid as long as God can serve as a witness. This is an eternal promise in other words.

This promise has two aspects. First, God promises that He will not add any additional curse to the ground because of man’s sin. Now we need to understand that God is not removing the curse that he has already placed on creation because of Adam's sin. Some people teach that God alleviated the original curse of Gen 3, but that is wrong thinking; death remains a component of life—the original curse remains. Rather God is committing to not add to that curse even though He acknowledges that man is continually evil. In other words, man is totally depraved and that means that man will continually be wicked in his actions. God knows that the earth will once again become wicked, just as it was in the days before the flood because man’s sinful nature is unchanged. Yet, God promises that he will not bring another such judgment upon the earth. We know from the rest of God’s revelation that the next time God destroys the earth; it will be at the end of history itself; there will not be another reset as there was with Noah.

The second aspect to this promise is that God promises that the earth will have regular seasons and cycles as long as it exists. There will be time to seed and a time to harvest. There will be seasons of cold and seasons of heat. There will be seasons of summer and seasons of winter. There will be regular days and there will be regular nights. All the cycles that we are so familiar with will continue as long as the earth is here.

Illustration

I was studying this passage on Thursday and then I happened to wake up early on Friday morning just before the sun came up and I could hear birds singing outside my window. I couldn't help but think about how God had promised that there would be regular days and nights. I realized once again that God has designed the birds so that they would wake up every day in time to greet each new day with their songs of praise. I couldn't help but think that God must be pleased every morning is He hears the birds of His creation rejoicing that He is faithfully bringing another day into existence just as He promised Himself in this text. The birds’ songs are a reminder of God’s deliverance.

Application

At the same time, if the birds are ready to praise God for the deliverance that He brings through a new day in their lives, how much more should we be ready to praise God because of the deliverance that we have experienced in our lives? We have been delivered from the weight of sin’s guilt. We have been rescued from eternal damnation. We have been freed from the bondage of our sin that enslaved us so that all that we could do was evil continually. For such great deliverance have we become worshippers of God? Do we give him the praise and adoration that He deserves? Romans 12:1 says that the only proper sacrifice for God, based on what He has given for our deliverance—the life of His Son—is our own lives as living sacrifices. Remember, Paul says, “Present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

Noah offered the sacrifice that represented his total surrender and dedication to the Lord. Are you giving the same type of sacrifice that represents your total surrender and dedication to the Lord—a life of faithful obedience and praise? Real worship, the worship that pleases God, looks like a total dedication of our lives to God. We who have been delivered from so much should worship in a way that reflects our great deliverance. Our lives should be all about worship; both as we gather for weekly times of vibrant corporate worship and as we separate throughout the week to serve with lives of active surrender.

Transition from body to conclusion:

Deliverance generates worship of God.

CONCLUSION

We must wait patiently for God’s deliverance. We have promises from God, but these promises many times leave us in a waiting pattern. That is why We must wait patiently for God’s deliverance.

From what we have seen in our chapter this evening, we should recognize that our 34 days of staying at home have not been very severe when compared to what Noah and his family went through. Yet, I believe that our current situation should help make the lesson that we can learn from Noah more pertinent because we are struggling with the need to wait patiently for God's deliverance.

In this chapter, we have looked at three elements that go with our lesson. First, we must remember that deliverance begins with God. Second, deliverance waits on God. Third, deliverance worships God. We need to be men and women, like Noah, who do all three. While we wait for our final deliverance in Christ, we should be worshippers because we have already experienced the beginning of that deliverance through our salvation.

We must wait patiently for God’s deliverance.