Sermon Nuggets Mon April 23
Verses Gen 8
A New Beginning
Since
Sermon Nuggets are recycled old sermons I preached from Chapter 8 of Genesis as
a communion service and tied in a brief way thanksgiving of Noah and the
sacrifice of thanksgiving with sharing our thanks to God for our new beginning
due to the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
As we look
at chapter 8 Noah and his family emerge from the ark and are standing on solid
ground. There is a a new world and a new beginning. We have already seen in this
series from Genesis these stories in the Old Testament are actual history –
that is, they are not myth but actual historic occurrences. From these stories
in our lives we can relate to the spiritual principles. We learn about God
about faith, about the way the men and women of old practiced their life lived
in the grace and glory of God. We learn about obedience and blessing.
If you add it all up all the days
Noah was on the ark we conclude he and his family spent one year and 17 days in
the ark. That’s a long time in a cramped space with lots and lots of animals.
This was no luxury cruise in the Caribbean. The Bible does not tell us anything
about Noah’s thoughts or challenges while on the ark. We can only imagine his personal
emotions during the long time they spent in the ark. We know that he was a man
of faith who took God at his Word.
But he was human, too. The sea is a
lonely place. It could not have been easy to be shut up inside the ark with his
family and all those animals. Did he wonder if God had forgotten him? I could
not blame him if he had his doubts. How long must he be in this situation.
The thought
that comes to me is that we have a promise from God that He would overcome this
world. We know the Jesus will return and there will be a new world. But for now
we wait and work. Our world today is far different from Noah’s ark and life
confined in the ship, but the wait sometimes feels long for us to see Gods
promises come about. We would do well to remind ourselves of Noah who was saved
from distruction.
He had done what God had said. He had preached to the
unbelieving world. He cannot see the sun because of the cloud cover. There is
no course to follow, just drifting on the surface of the endless, endless ocean.
The message
of Genesis 8 is in the first verse, “But God remembered Noah…”
Maybe you feel like you are in a waiting period in your
life. You are waiting for the next step or promise of God. It seems long. It is
easy to doubt. But don’t’ forgot. God knows. He has not forgotten.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Tues April 24-
Verses- Gen 8:1-5 1 But God
remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him
in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. 2 Now
the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and
the rain had stopped falling from the sky. 3 The
water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days
the water had gone down, 4 and on the seventeenth
day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 The
waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the
tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.
God Remembers
We begin with passage with the words,
“And God remembered Noah.” Now we realize that God does not forget. He didn’t
look down upon the earth with the horrible flood and all of the sudden say,
“Oh, where is everyone? Oh I remember now, Noah is down there in the ark. I
better do something about it.?
The
emphasis on God remembrance is simply that God keeps his promises. He is doing
what He said He would do. He said he would do three things. First He would
destroy the world. Secondly, He would save Noah and his family and a couple of
each animal and seven pairs of other animals. And thirdly, He would start over
with Noah’s clan.
The Bible
also speaks of God remembering in other places. God remembered Abraham, God
remembered Rachel, God remembered Hannah. There was a personal relationship
with people. But based on promises God is holding true to his word. God is
saying that he will honor his word. When it says Noah found favor with God, He
gave Noah instructions to build an ark, and Noah obeyed and did everything the
Lord told him to do. God gave him a promise that from him would come the new
people. He saved Noah from the flood and is now going to start over again in
the world.
As chaplain
in the hospital in Cambridge I volunteer a week just like some other pastor’s
do. I’ve been involved with some serious car accidents and talking with folks
in the emergency room. Although some
folks were quite seriously injured others escaped with minor injuries.
Repeatedly, there was great thankfulness by those who were spared serious
injury or death. When you face the fact that you could have died or been
permanently disabled the response is almost always a deep sense of gratitude.
One is thankful for life and for faculties of the body happens. They were not
thankful for what happened, but grateful for what didn’t happen.
Notice the comments made by those
who have gone through hurricanes, tornados, and other tragic storms. People who
have been spared realize what could have happened and are filled with
thanksgiving. Sometimes those who have experience no hardships, difficulties
and trails are thankful, but not to the same degree or depth of those for whom
those situations have been real and close.
When God
remembered Noah, the ordeal for the family was coming to an end. They lost everything
but God was starting over through them. Noah was more aware of the grace of God and he
was spared punishment.
There has
been a play produced, Hell’s gates and Heaven’s portals. Many have seen the
video of it. This play portrays people dying and being at the gates of Hell or
the portals of Heaven depending on whether they repented of sin and turned by
faith to Jesus Christ. It was a dramatic and sobering portrayal of eternity
without Christ or with Christ. The sense of thankfulness was enhanced when one
realizes what we have been spared Hell by the grace of God.
God remembered you and me. God knows
us by name. As God’s children there are so many problems that we will not have
to face. There but for the grace of God go I.
He
remembers you!
Pastor Dale
Weds April 25
Verses Gen 8:6-17 6 After forty
days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark 7 and
sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried
up from the earth. 8 Then he sent out a dove to see
if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9 But
the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the
surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his
hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He
waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When
the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly
plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the
earth. 12 He waited seven more days and sent the
dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
13 By the first day of the
first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from
the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface
of the ground was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day
of the second month the earth was completely dry.
15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Come
out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring
out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and
all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth
and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”
Signs of Hope
Noah was looking for signs that the
flood was coming to an end. I’m sure he was tired of being around those animals
day and night. In the play, Noah the Musical, they depict how difficult it was
to stay in the ark with the animals. We see patience is needed to be cramped up
with the hard work of taking care of the animals plus their own needs. They
couldn’t exactly dump the fertilizer in the fields. I can’t imagine living
conditions for a year without “getting out of the house”.
So he sent out a raven. Since ravens
feast on rotting flesh, it no doubt found plenty to eat on the surface of the ocean. It flew back and
forth but did not return to the ark. The first time Noah sent out a dove, it
came back because the water wasn’t low enough. The second time the dove
returned with an olive leaf, indicating that plants were beginning to grow. The
third time he sent out a dove, it didn’t come back at all. Noah knew then that the end of the flood must be
very near.
But why did
he send the birds in the first place? God had told him when the flood would
start but not when it would end. He needed to know the approximate date it
would begin so he could build the ark in time. But God never told him how long
the flood would last because he didn’t need to know. One of the first questions
people ask often even before they have surgery is “How long will it take?” or
“How long do I have to be in the hospital?” We want to know when it is going to
end or we can get back to normal. It is a good thing to have hope when our
troubles will end.
Often, it is the not knowing that wears
us down. “When will this end?” And the answer is always: “In God’s time, not
one day sooner, not one day later.” God can make the dry ground appear anytime
he chooses. We may feel forgotten and abandoned in the flood, but the dry land
will appear in due time.
Notice also that Noah didn’t get out
of the ark for a long time even after the first land appeared. I think after a
year on the ark, I would have jumped over the side and started swimming for
shore as soon as the first peak poked through the surface of the water. But
Noah still had lots of waiting to do.
In our impatience or in our frustration
or desperation we may try to hurry up God. We might try to leave the ark too
soon. But we miss out on faith, hope and trust that are part of our listening
lessons that comes with patience. That is much easier for me to say than to
practice. I am not a good patient. I am not a good waiter.
And just
as God gave Noah a sign, he still gives signs and tokens of his grace today.
Often it is a Scripture or a song repeated at just the right moment. Or a phone
call or a letter that came when we felt like giving up. God does not always
spare us the pain of life, but he gives us tokens, roses that bloom in the
snow, to remind us that even in our sadness and even in our despair, we are
never alone, never forgotten.
But there are signs that give us hope
that God is at work. Little things that are notes from God He has not forgotten
us. Thy raven could eat on dead fish and dead things all around, but the dove
needed vegetation. There were signs things were ready when Noah saw the fig
leaf. Then when the dove did not return it was a sign of hope.
In verses 16-17 the Lord instructed
Noah to leave the ark with his family and the animals. As far as we can tell,
this is the first time God had spoken to Noah since he told him to enter the
ark. As Noah watched and waited, he went about his duties, wondering when the
Lord would speak to him again. His family stayed faithful to what they knew to
be true. It did not matter if he “felt” like it or not. He knew that God had
led him this far, and he believed that God had his best interests at heart.
It is hard to wait. But the best
thing is to remain faithful for what you know God wants from you. It is a
obedience and trust. Someone put the
truth this way:” Do not doubt in the darkness what God has shown you in the
light.” When the time comes, God will speak to you again. He has given us His
promise to never leave us and never forsake us. He will speak to you again even
after a quiet time. He always does but not always on our timetable.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Thurs April 26 –
Gen 8:18-22 18 So Noah came out,
together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. 19 All the animals and
all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that
moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the
clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The LORD
smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the
ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is
evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I
have done.
22 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and
harvest, cold and heat, summer and
winter, day and night will never cease.”
Noah Remembered
Now they were leaving the known for the
unknown. The world they had known was gone forever. Cities gone, roads gone,
homes gone, people gone. Geography changed, landmarks all different. Nothing
looked the same. Everything was new.
The thought occurred to me that it must
have been hard to leave the boat even though they looked forward to the day
they could get out. This was their life and security for over a year and now
that step into the unknown is a step of faith. I think this might be light our
knowledge of the new world we experience after death. But this life on earth is
what we know. It is hope of heaven that gives us security, but who wants to
“leave this boat”? We love this life we know and can be anxious when we have to
go through the shadow of death.
The first thing mentioned after Noah and
his family left the ark was to build an altar unto God to offer thanksgiving.
Noah was filled with thanksgiving. God did not only remember Noah, Noah
remembered God.
Noah recognized that he
owed everything to the Lord. It was God who warned him, God who told him to
build the ark, God who designed the ark, God who called the animals to the ark
two by two, God who shut the door, God who preserved the ark through the flood,
God who brought the ark to a safe place, and it was God who told Noah when it
was safe to leave the ark. God did it all! Noah was just along for the ride!
The word tells us that the LORD
smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse
the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil
from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have
done." As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night will never cease."
When we offer up "the sacrifice of
praise...God is well pleased" Heb. 13:15-16 "Through Jesus, therefore, let us
continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise-- the fruit of lips that confess
his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such
sacrifices God is pleased.”
Noah sacrificed to God. It was an
expression from his heart and his actions. That pleases God. Actions without
attitude don’t mean anything. Attitude without actions don’t mean much. It is
the combination of thanksgiving from attitude that motivates action.
Thanksgiving is shown in our actions for what God provides. If we are thankful in our hearts, we will
be thankful in our daily living. "Thanksgiving is thanks-living!" That
is, a thankful spirit is translated into our actions. Every good gift and every
perfect gifts is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom
is not changing, neither shadow of turning. Jms 1:17
Each generation would repeat the
problems of the previous generation. In the context of the sacrifice, the Lord
made a promise: "I won't destroy them again." But he didn't say how
he would answer the problem. What could God do for a race like this?
This counsel of God with himself is
instructive. The problem of a righteous God and a sinful population and his
refusal to destroy them completely leaves him ultimately with only one choice.
It's not outlined here, but it's the greatest story of all, the story of how
God would take their punishment on himself. God’s promise was to himself. It
did not rest on man’s actions, but God’s actions. That is where the cross comes
in. Man is worth saving, but I will do so for those who demonstrate faith in
me.
Bible instructs us to come before
God, not only with "prayer and supplication," but also "with
thanksgiving" (Phil. 4:6). Prayer and thanksgiving are seldom seen one
without the other in the Scriptures.
"Enter into his gates with Thanksgiving and into his courts with
praise: Be Thankful unto him and bless his name. (Psalm 100:4)
John
Piper said, “Suppose you give someone a gift at a party and he opens it and
loves it. He fondles it and shows it off and speaks of it the whole evening.
But never once does he even look at you or speak to you the giver. He is
totally enthralled with the gift. What do we say of such a person? We say he is
an ingrate. Why? Because his emotion of joy over the gift has no reference to
the goodwill of the giver.”
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Fri April 27
Verses- Gen 8: 20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and,
taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt
offerings on it.
How We Remember
The altar was a way provided by God for
mankind to give to the Lord from his flocks or heard a sacrifice for sin, for
worship, for thanksgiving. This story is repeated as a means of how God saved
the world from destruction. The ark becomes a picture of the door of salvation.
It is available by the grace of God to
come through the door who is Jesus Christ. John 10:9 “I am the door: by me if any man
enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”
We have
another sacrifice who is Jesus Christ our access to the Father. The communion
observance is a means also of remembrance. It is a time to think of the destruction to come and know by the
promise of God we have the promise of eternal life and not eternal damnation.
The communion meal pictures for us a thanksgiving meal. The provider is God. It
is remembering God because he first remembered us.
At
the time of communion we are also celebrating our new beginning with a new life
in Jesus. We are a new creation. Old things are passed away and all things
become new.
When Jesus
died he said “remember me.”. Because we have sinned there is consequence for
our sin, but Jesus took our place. His suffering saved us. To all who accept
Jesus as their savior they are freely forgiven of all the past, all the
present, all the future. We are made new in God’s eyes. We have lots to be thankful for.
We have been purchased with the
blood of Jesus to begin again. We are starting over. Jesus died that we can
have a new start. We have the same animals. We go to school and the kids are
the same. The family is the same, our job or work is the same, but we are
different in Jesus. We have a new kingdom.
Today is a new day. It is a gift from God. We not only have
been spared from destruction, we embrace newness in Jesus and this is a
reminder that we have been bought with a price. We belong to God.
Pastor Dale
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