God Remembered
Notes
Transcript
I Like Big Buts
… God Remembered
Genesis 8:1-4
Series Slide
Good morning and welcome to worship! It was good to be away for a few days… and we aren’t even going to talk about the weather while we were gone and since we’ve been back. I think the term I used to describe what we returned to was ‘frozen tundra.’ But enough of that… I want to say a special thank you to Connor for his message Sunday. I am truly thankful for all the wonderful servants that God has placed in His church… people like Alex, Priscilla, Connor, and others who are able to step in and share God’s word with us.
Connor did an amazing job… he didn’t follow the I Like Big Buts series, but the theme fit perfectly… we serve a God who is rich in mercy… Mercy for the Ninevites and mercy for Jonah -who the story is really about, and mercy for you and me. It certainly fits with the idea that God has more than we could ever ask or imagine.
This week we are moving into another of the children’s stories of the Bible as we move to our second Big Butsermon. Turn with me to Genesis 8:1-4 in your Bibles. This is quite possibly the most epic story in the Bible and it is a story that has its origins in every part of the world. It is the story of the Flood.
God has chosen to destroy the earth, saving a remnant of humanity and animals only. Noah and his family are the only humans to survive in the story along with 2 of every kind of animal. The story tells us that it rained for 40 days and nights, then the waters continued to rise for an additional 100+ days. The Floodwaters had covered the earth for 150 days when we pick up in chapter 8
Genesis 8:1-4
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat. He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede. The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped. So the floodwaters gradually receded from the earth. After 150 days, exactly five months from the time the flood began, the boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
<Prayer>
God remembered
Before we get into the meat of the message, I wanted to share something with you. Sometimes our kids or our grandkids will come home from school talking about this passage… and, for you students, you may hear that the story of Noah’s Ark is just a mytho-poetic story made up by the Hebrew people. We may be told that it’s just one of many flood stories from around the world.
The Native American’s of the US have a cataclysmic flood story.
The Asian cultures have a couple of flood stories, one involving a man who had a boat and rescued the animals as the flood waters rose.
The one we hear about most often is the Gilgamesh Epic of the Assyrians. The Akkadians and the Sumerians all have similar stories. Each of the stories have similarities, but the biblical account shows a God that is not irritated by the sin of humanity, but was greatly grieved. God wasn’t tricked by another deity, our God intentionally saved humanity from the flood through Noah. Noah didn’t attain immortality like the Babylonian story, but God did make a covenant with Noah.
Here's what I want you to understand about these stories. I and many other scholars don’t believe the Biblical story of the flood was a copy of the other stories. I don’t believe that these other stories prove that the story of Noah is a myth. In fact, I believe the opposite. I believe that these other stories from around the world prove that there was a cataclysmic flood that did happen. The fossil record demonstrates this… the strata of the earth’s crust confirm this… I believe that a remnant of animals and people in different parts of the world survived the flood and passed the story down from generation to generation. Each story unique, but with similarities. What we read in our Bible is the account of the Hebrew people and how God spared them, how God remembered them. And that is our first point… God remembered.
When we think of the word remembered, it usually involves the fact that we forgot something… I forgot my kids at school, but then I remembered and went and got them… or I forgot where my keys were, then I remembered where I left them.
Science fiction is full of opportunities to play with this idea of forgetting and remembering. Arnold Schwarzenegger was in a movie in 1990… they did do a remake, but the remake isn’t near as good as the original. In the movie, the main character is a man by the name of Douglas Quaid who keeps having nightmares. In the futuristic world of 2085, people can have their minds reprogrammed… they can literally have the past wiped away and new memories implanted. Quaid decides to have a new memory, a vacation to Mars, implanted… not realizing his mind had been wiped previously and the new implanted story would literally mess with his mind… and now he is having a total recall. I guess you could say, he remembered his past life… what was forgotten is now remembered.
That’s the idea we get when we think of remembering, we think of recalling that which is forgotten.
It’s like the story of the soldiers who thought they had been forgotten as a prisoner of war.
It’s like the worker in the factory that feels the boss has forgotten about him.
It’s like you and me…. Feeling lost and forgotten.
In The Handbook of Genesis by the United Bible Society, we read that the fact that “God remembered Noah does not mean that God had forgotten him and then recalled his situation to mind.” Reyburn, William David, and Euan McG. Fry. 1998. A Handbook on Genesis. UBS Handbook Series. New York: United Bible Societies.
That’s my next point…
God has not forgotten
We look at our lives at times and we feel forgotten… The illness… the injury… the finances… the relationship… the war… I could go on and on with all the things that happen in our lives that make us think we have been forgotten by others, or forgotten by God.
In this story, God remembered means that God has not forgotten Noah. The Handbook of Genesis goes on to say that the word Zakar or “Rememberedin this context means taking merciful action in regard to someone who is threatened or in trouble… “God had not forgotten” is a negative way of expressing something of this idea in English.”
It’s more like saying God thought about Noah. It is a concept that not only means remembering the past, but it’s like saying “God remembered Noah’s future.”
It makes me think of many people’s favorite passage from Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
God knows your past and God knows your future. God has not forgotten you, God sees more of you than you know. God knows you, God knit you together in your mother’s womb. God knows the hairs of your head, God knows the freckles that no one else sees… God knows you from the inside out.
God has not forgotten you.
When you are worried about paying all the bills… God has not forgotten you.
When the diagnosis and the prognosis aren’t what you hoped for… God has not forgotten you.
When the treatment isn’t working… God has not forgotten you.
When the job is coming to an end… God has not forgotten you.
When your children don’t call you… God has not forgotten you.
God remembers you… God sees your past, the present, and the future… and God is working in all that to bring about something new and good in and through you. God knows the plans he has for you… and they are good and hopeful.
One thing I have learned over that past couple of years… God is doing a new thing!
God is doing a new thing
Look at our church… God is doing a new thing. A big part of that is those of you that gather each week to pray for this church and this community.
God is honoring your prayers… There is a revival taking place here… we had a Baptism in here a few weeks ago… today there are 2 youth being Baptized in Common Ground. In the past 5 weeks, we have celebrated 4 baptisms. That is an amazing thing… God is doing a new thing!
In the book of Isaiah, we read about God’s words sent to the people through the prophet. They have been in exile for years and God begins to tell them that in the midst of their exile and captivity, God is at work to bring about their salvation. God is making a way where there is no way… a way for them to return to the land they were promised… then we read these words:
Isaiah 43:19
For I am about to do something new.
See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
Whatever you are going through right now, I want you to know that you are not alone. We serve a God who is at work right now… Whatever your exile looks like… Whatever you are held captive by… God is doing something new… God is bringing about your salvation…
Ladies and gentlemen… God remembers you.
Whatever it is, the past that haunts you… the sins that you can’t forgive… the illness that plagues you… the injury that troubles you… the turmoil in your family… whatever it is… you can name it… you can talk about it… you can list it all out… as long as you follow it with this fact… as long as you follow it with this “Big But.”
But God remembered…
God remembers you.
And, right now, in 2024, God sees you: past, present, and future… and with God that future is full of hope and promise.
Like we said last in week one, “God has more in 2024.”
God has more than you can ask or imagine… God is doing a new thing!
So I ask, what is God doing in you?
Altar Call?