Gen. 8:1–22 - Cameron Jungels - Sun PM, April 27, 2014

“God Remembers His Covenant” (Gen. 8:1–22)

^{Cameron Jungels/Eastside Baptist/Sun PM/April 27, 2014}

 

7 days of waiting for flood (7:4)

            7 days of waiting for flood (7:10)

                        40 days of flood (7:17a)

                                    150 days of water triumphing (7:24)

                                    150 days of water waning (8:3)

                        40 days of waiting (8:6)

            7 days of waiting (8:10)

7 days of waiting (8:12)

 

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark (Genesis 8:1, NIV) 

¹⁸ But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark-- you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.  ¹⁹ You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.  ²⁰ Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.  (Genesis 6:18-20, NIV)

 

God faithfully keeps the covenants that he makes with his people. (8:1–19)  

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. (Genesis 8:1, NIV) 

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1:2, NIV) 

Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. (Genesis 8:2, NIV) 

The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, (Genesis 8:3, NIV) 

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.  (Genesis 8:4-5, NIV) 

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.  (Genesis 8:6-7, NIV) 

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.  (Genesis 8:8-9, NIV) 

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.  (Genesis 8:10-12, NIV) 

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.  (Genesis 8:13-14, NIV) 

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."  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.  (Genesis 8:15-19, NIV)

 

Verses 1–19 are intended to convey the faithfulness of God to his covenant. God faithfully keeps the covenants that he makes with his people. So, how should we respond to God and his grace and mercy toward us? We know that God is a covenant keeping God. God keeps his promises, but what is our responsibility what is our response to God and his character and his acts of mercy?

 

We must respond to God’s covenant faithfulness with the sacrifice of worship and service. (8:20–24)  

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. (Genesis 8:20, NIV) 

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." (Genesis 8:21-22, NIV) 

⁹ "To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. (Isa. 54:9, NIV) 

Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God-- this is your true and proper worship. (Romans 12:1, NIV) 

 

Main Idea: We must respond to God’s covenant faithfulness with the sacrifice of worship and service.