Waiting Faithfully: A Sermon Based on Genesis Chapter 8 (Noah's Faithfulness, Waiting & Salvation)

Being faithful is not always easy. Often we are called to wait . . . sometimes in silence.

Today's Message is about such faithful waiting.

Today we will read from Genesis Chapter 8, and hear a story of faithfulness, waiting and salvation.

Starting at verse 1:

1 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.

2 The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped.

3 So the floodwaters gradually receded from the earth. After 150 days,

4 exactly five months from the time the flood began, the boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

5 Two and a half months later, as the waters continued to go down, other mountain peaks became visible.

6 After another forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat

7 and released a raven. The bird flew back and forth until the floodwaters on the earth had dried up.

8 He also released a dove to see if the water had receded and it could find dry ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to land because the water still covered the ground. So it returned to the boat, and Noah held out his hand and drew the dove back inside. 10 After waiting another seven days, Noah released the dove again.

11 This time the dove returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. Then Noah knew that the floodwaters were almost gone.

12 He waited another seven days and then released the dove again. This time it did not come back.

Hear how many gaps in time there are? How many times Noah waited? And as you are probably familiar, this is near the end of the story. He had already waited a great deal of time before this.

When Noah went into the Ark he had little idea what was going to happen. For a year he waited and wondered,

• would the rain ever stop?
• will there be anything left after the flood went away
• would there be enough food or places for all the animals to live
• could things ever be the way they "used to be"
• at times of great frustration, cooped in this tiny place, he probably wondered if it wouldn't have been better to have died in the flood
• he may have even thought "After all thus, I'm not sure if I'll want to spend one more minute with this crazy family of mine!"

Think about it. An entire year of uncertainty.

Most of us are not very patient.

We can get frustrated if we have to wait for a couple cars to go by before we can pull out of our drive-way!

We get impatient if there is someone in front of us at the checkout line at the store.

We want things fast.

We want our Internet connection to be faster.

We put our food in the microwave so it will be ready in a couple of minutes.

We carry credit cards so we don't have to wait for anything.

We read condensed books to save time, we carry cellular phones so we can communicate anywhere from any place.

Is it any wonder that many us have found ourselves with "fast food, in-and-out, take it to go, drive-up window faith?

With OUR GOD (all capital letters) we deserve a break TODAY. We want it OUR WAY. And we want it finger lickin' good and wrapped to go.

In other words, please give me patience God, and would you hurry up with it.

We begin to doubt Him if God has any delay in answering our prayers.

We get frustrated if we don't understand the Bible the first time we read it.

We get confused when the will of God is different than our own timetable or agenda.

But God knows that some lessons can only be learned over time.

There are some things we cannot understand.

Some things must be concealed.

And sometimes it is necessary that we spend time in the waiting room.

Most of us know what it is like to sit in a hospital waiting room.

The time passes slowly.

When will a doctor come out and tell us what going on?

Every half hour we check the clock only to find that just a few minutes have passed since the last time we looked.

We try to do other things but we can only think about what is going on. What's going on to US. What's NOT happening!

We try to make conversation but it's obvious that we have our minds on other things.

The whole "waiting room" thing can leave us physically and emotionally exhausted.

The waiting room is a hard place to be.

But that is often where God places us.

• When we hear the words "tumor" or "malignant" or "cancer" or "Alzheimer's" or "Parkinson's" or any number of other frightening diagnoses . . . we must wait to see what happens.
• When we need to make choices about our employment but don't know which way to turn we often find ourselves in the "waiting room".
• When we want to share our lives with someone and develop a relationship of love but nothing seems to be happening, we may be in the waiting room.
• When someone we love is hurting or making what seems to be poor decisions and it seems like there is "just one thing after another". Things never change. We ask "why God?" but we find ourselves in the waiting room.
• When we ask God....Where do you want me, what do you want me to do? And there seems to be a long silence with no apparent answer, we feel stuck in a waiting room.

You see, God knows that it is in these times, when we have the least amount of control, that we can exercise the greatest amount of faith.

In these times we are left to choose between trusting God, or swimming in the flood of self-pity and futility we create in our minds.

We can worry or we can trust.

We can keep going or we can give up.

There are some things we just can't control.

And in those times we learn to trust.

Noah was in the waiting room.

Imagine being a waiting room filled with hundreds of smelly, cooped up farm animals.

He didn't know when and He didn't know where they would ever leave the Ark, but He kept going.

Fact is, he didn't have a lot of choice.

And we usually don't either.

But the bible tells us Noah continued to trust God and faithfully tend to his duties.

It seems Noah's waiting room may have been a little easier to wait in, because of two main things:

First, He had God's promise

God told Noah that He would save His family. He told Noah that he was going to start over with him. Noah may not have fully grasped all that this meant . . . but He had God's Word. And so do we. When we are in the waiting room we have God's promises to rest on.

God has promised that He would take care of us.

He has promised that He will guide us.

He has promised that He will equip us to meet every situation.

Noah trusted God's promise . . . . even in the waiting room.

Second, Noah Knew God didn't just make promises, He kept them

Noah had walked and talked with God. A lot.

Over the years Noah had seen what God was like.

He had a relationship with Him.

He had seen His faithfulness, His love, and His mercy displayed time and time again.

Noah knew that God cared.

He had experienced that care in the past.

And as he looked back on his life He could see that God had been true to His Word.

Noah knew this about God.

He knew he could trust Him.

The story of Noah is also about Salvation.

Although we are called to patiently wait.

We are promised Salvation by our Lord.

God promised Noah he would be saved, and when the waiting was over, he and his family, who had patiently waited, were saved.

13 Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the new year, ten and a half months after the flood began,* the floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth. Noah lifted back the covering of the boat and saw that the surface of the ground was drying.

14 Two more months went by,* and at last the earth was dry!

15 Then God said to Noah,

16 "Leave the boat, all of you-you and your wife, and your sons and their wives. 17 Release all the animals-the birds, the livestock, and the small animals that scurry along the ground-so they can be fruitful and multiply throughout the earth."

18 So Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives left the boat.

19 And all of the large and small animals and birds came out of the boat, pair by pair.

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose.

21 And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, "I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things.

22 As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night."

Noah was happy to wait, because he had God's promises, and he knew that God kept his word.

As we sit, and wait, let us do so faithfully. Knowing in our hearts that the promise of salvation is real.

We are assured of this promise because God kept his word then, keeps his word now, and shall keep his word throughout eternity.

Those waiting for the messiah to arrive in ancient times had to wait a long time. He had been prophesied about hundreds of years before.

There was much faithful waiting.

But God had made a promise, and he kept it. Christ did arrive, and the prophesies were fulfilled.

God made a promise, man waited, God kept his word, there was Salvation.

In the present day, there are many now, faithfully waiting for the day of the Lord, when Christ will return.

He said that he would.

He did not say when he would, or how he would, in concrete terms.

He said that he would return as a thief in the night, and we should faithful wait. Be prepared, for we will not know the time.

He promised he would return, but we must wait.

On that promise, we know that God keeps his word. God kept his word to Noah, he keeps his word to all of us.

But in his way, and in his time.

Keep this in mind. Faithful waiting is not about just sitting and waiting and doing nothing.

Noah had many things he needed to do. He had to get his hands dirty. He had tasks to take care of each day as he waited.

But a great deal of the time, as he was taking care of the things he was called to do, he had to just sit and wait for God's plan to play itself out.

So now, just as we began, let us sit and wait....faithfully...on the Lord, for the Lord, with the Lord....

Our salvation he has assured for all eternity, if we hear his promises, and trust Him to do what he has always done with his people.

saith His humble servant, I shall sit and wait faithfully upon the Lord, for he is trustworthy and always keeps his Word.

Amen.

©2008 Timothy Henry

Contains some elements from a Sermon by Rev. Bruce Goettsche

Bible Verse Quotes from the NLT (New Living Translation)