Genesis 8

Can we talk about the gift of slowing down for a moment?  I had kind of expected that today’s meditation would feel just like a continuation of last Wednesday (Genesis 7). Funny how we do that to ourselves. And then I got to slow down and sit in it and there was so much richness for me.  You're invited to do the same. May the Lord meet you in the exact way you need.

Transcript

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Can we just appreciate the gift of slowing down for a moment? You know, we all can be guilty of rushing ahead of a particular situation, especially when we get all up in our heads about whatever that might be. And it's not always like a huge deal or a massive problem, but I was kind of guilty of that even last week. I had gone through Genesis seven and done the devotion for that day. And in the process of that, you know, I had read the completion of Noah's story just to kind of, you know, set my set my mind sort of where I needed to be. And I looked at Genesis eight and I thought, oh, well, that'll just kind of be a continuation of what we're doing here today. And well, that's true because it is a continuation of the story. And I was still kind of thinking that as I came to my quiet time this morning. And when I got to Genesis 8, I read it through and allowed myself a little bit to kind of soak certain things in. And then I kind of stopped myself and I was like, hang on, Tim, you're you're moving too quick. And just asked the Lord to meet me in that passage. And as I was able to sit in it a little bit longer to kind of slow things down, slow down my own mind, slow down my own heart, I found that there was, at least for me, just a bunch of richness that I didn't particularly expect. And so I'm excited to kind of share this with you. And and it may not be rich for you, and that that's okay, but it was for me. And I just wanted you to know that that this is uh hopefully a blessing to you, but it is absolutely for sure a blessing to me. Happy Wednesday. We're in Genesis chapter 8 today. If you have a copy of the Word of God handy, please go ahead and open that. It's it's great to follow along. In fact, today I'm not going to read all of chapter 8. I'm going to read verse 1, and then we're going to skip right down to verse 13. It's not that the other verses don't matter, but they're just kind of descriptive, and I I found some good stuff for us as we moved into the later part of the chapter. Let's go ahead and pray, and then we'll move into the text together. Jesus, thank you that you are patient and that you're consistent. That whenever we have that moment where we recognize we need to stop and just come into your presence, you're there. Thanks for not ever running away from us. We love you. Amen. All right, Genesis chapter eight, verse one, and then verse thirteen through the end. 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. By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the ground. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. By the twenty seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry. Then God said to Noah, Come out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and their wives, 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. So Noah came out together with his sons and his wife and his son wives, sons wives. 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. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and after taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 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. As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease. Go ahead and take a moment, pause this if you need to, and just listen. Listen to what the Spirit of God is highlighting for you. And if there's nothing, don't worry about it, but just go ahead and take a moment before I start talking to you again and listen to the Lord. Let's go ahead and dive into this passage, hopefully to learn a little bit more together and certainly to appreciate it. The first bit is why we made a point of reading verse one together. It says there that God remembered Noah. And just so that we're really clear about this, this is not a memory issue. God isn't like forgetful in that sense, but it is a seeing thing. God saw Noah or he was mindful of him. What I mean is this: in the midst of the grief that God felt and then the judgment that took place that we're reading about right now, God is cognizant. He's mindful of Noah. He remembers him in that sense. He hasn't pushed him off aside with everything else that's taking place. In the midst of all of that, in the midst of the the again, that grief and the regret that God felt, and we we read about that in Genesis 6. God is still looking and seeing Noah and remembering Noah's faithfulness, and so God still has this plan that He's doing. And so it's just kind of this cool little moment that we get to see the mind of God, I think, being revealed. The next bit is a little bit, I don't want to say it's nerdy, but it's a little bit kind of an explanation sort of a deal. In verses 13 and 14, there are a couple of time references. And again, I'll be honest with you, when I read them, I had a moment even this morning where I was like, hang on a second, how much time is taking place? Because we know from uh earlier in in the story that that Noah entered the Ark when he was 600. And so the wording can kind of throw you off if you're not paying attention. Let me read it to you again so that we know what we're talking about here. So verse 13, by the first day of the first month of Noah's 601st year. So let's just stop there for a second and remind ourselves that whenever we talk about somebody's like the year that they're in, they're they're moving up to it. So Noah isn't 601, he's still 600. He's in his 601st year. I hope that makes sense. All right, and then it says the first day of the first month of Noah's 601st year. And what my brain did was to say, oh, he's giving us a time reference in the context of Noah's life. And like, hang on a second. No, that's that's not right. And this is where we remind ourselves that Moses is the one who wrote down the Genesis account, and the first month reference, the first day of the first month, is a reference to Israel's calendar. So he's using that time reference that he and the people of Israel would would normally use. So he's using kind of common language to describe the story. In fact, if you're curious about how all of that works, you can read in Exodus chapter 12, in the story of the Exodus, which takes place much later than this, but it's during Moses' time, that in Exodus 12.2, we find that God institutes the start of their calendar, their calendar year to coincide with the Passover. As He's giving instructions for the Passover, he says, this is going to be the start of your year. So that when you know when we celebrate Easter, it's at the same same time, that's when their year starts. The Hebrews or the Israelites, they used kind of a lunar calendar that kind of did some meshing with the solar calendar, and they they had ways of kind of working that through. But just for our intents and purposes now, we're just recognizing that's what's happening. And I just thought it was kind of interesting. So we we see that, and then we move into just kind of maybe some good thoughts about those couple of verses. And Noah removed the ark, it says, in in that first month, right? The first month of the first year. And and what was that marking? It was marking the time when God was delivering Israel out of Egypt, right? That's where they got that time reference from. And he's in I'm referring to Exodus here. So he says to them in Exodus, this is when your year begins. And as Noah, as not as Noah, as Moses is telling this story, he's he's saying to the people, he says, Look, on that first month, and they're all thinking, right? They're all connecting those dots just automatically. Oh yeah, the the time when our year begins, and then they're going, oh, the time when God delivered us out of Egypt. And and I see that that's when when Noah uncovers the Ark. And I I'm not here to make like a big huge deal about this, but it seems interesting to me that God's deliverance has this kind of symmetry to it, that that the deliverance from the judgment that had taken place, and finally, you know, there's the opportunity to take that cover off. And it's, you know, the story isn't complete yet at all, but there's this movement out of this time that was that was difficult. I'm sure it was difficult for Noah and that family and and everybody that was aboard. And it was difficult for the Israelites when they were in Egypt. So just recognizing that that God delivers, and and I'm sure that would have resonated with them. This the next bit is maybe a little bit more personal, at least for me. It's just that Noah worships God. We see that there in verse 20. He he comes out of the ark that's all taken place, and he takes some of the clean animals and the birds, and he makes this burnt offering to the Lord, and that was that was the way that they expressed worship in in that time. And so that's that's what he's doing. He's he's coming and he's worshiping the Lord. And then now we understand at least part of the reason that there were seven pairs of clean animals. Part of that was food source, right? They weren't going to eat the other animals. Part of that was in order to do worship, the thing that they're doing right here in this description. And then, obviously, part of that was for the survival of their species. Lastly, God promises that l this level of destruction won't happen again. And in this part of the passage, it really is a kind of almost like a moment where he says in his heart, it says there in verse 21, never again, right? He says in his heart, he sees this, he sees and smells the offering that Noah has made, and then he goes, never again, and begins to give that promise that we have become so familiar with in church world today, that promise that judgment on that scope will never take place. We'll talk more about that next week. Let's take a moment and and just reflect. What does this mean for us today? Here we're we're thousands and thousands of years removed from these events, but but what can we take with us? The first thing for me is is right back in verse one, that God remembered Noah, and I am so convinced that he remembers and sees me and you. That that is the reality, and and I would say, even to a greater extent than what was happening then, because of the presence of the Spirit, because of the finished work of the cross, because of all of these different things, God, amidst all of the things that are taking place on our planet, amidst all of the different things that are taking place just in the world, that God is mindful, that he's cognizant of me and you for me. That is absolutely a huge encouragement that that I am seen and heard and understood. The second bit is this. How long does God's deliverance work take? And I realize now as I'm saying this that I missed one little point in talking about verses 13 and 14, but there's quite a bit of time in between the first day of the first month and when they actually leave the ark. It talks about the 27th day of the second month. That's almost two months more. You know, sometimes it really is as short as a moment or a day that we experience God's deliverance in our lives. But oftentimes there's that sense of, wow, this is an extra couple of months on top of the five that we already went through, right? Sometimes deliverance doesn't happen in the way that we want. Sometimes the change in our lives, the the newness that we yearn for doesn't happen as quickly as we wish that it would. How long does God's deliverance work actually take in our lives? And there's a call there for me and maybe for you as well, just for patience to trust God's timing, to leave some space for the flood waters to subside, for the chaos to dissipate, and for us to fully and completely follow and adore Him. And finally, am I prepared and ready to worship? Noah was ready. I mean, he was ready because the Lord told him what to do, but still, he came prepared. Are you and I ready to worship? Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this good day. We ask, Lord, that you would continue to lead us and show us the right way to live. But God, more than that, that you would be our comfort and strength. Amen.