Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Genesis 8:15-22
Pastor: Pastor Berg
Sermon Date:  October 9, 2022

The smell of the burning sacrifice filled the air as Noah and his family stood around the newly constructed altar. Shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand they watched as the sacrifices burned up completely. With the ark resting in the background, empty of all its inhabitants and a rainbow lighting up the sky, there was a deep sense of relief, a profound rest, an overflowing gratitude that filled those eight people as they stood and watched the smoke float towards heaven. An overflowing of thanksgiving poured out for what their God had done for them. But how do we get here?

Flashback six hundred and one years. A man by the name of Lamech had a son. He was so thankful for that son because of the comfort he would bring as help for the hard labor that life had become because of sin. And so he named him Noah, which sounds like the Hebrew words for comfort and rest. 

Fast forward 500 years and Noah has become a father himself. Three boys were told of: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. But things are not good in the world. The believers in the True God were becoming fewer and fewer as they gave themselves over to wickedness. God saw what was happening and knew something needed to be done. He gave the world 120 years to change and repent, 120 years to return to a right relationship with him. But most ignored this warning. We’re told of only one family who found favor in the eyes of the Lord, only one family whom God saw as righteous because of their faith in him. It was Noah’s. 

God told Noah what he was going to do; that he was going to destroy the world and every living thing on it. But he was going to spare Noah and his family. He was going to preserve the promise of the Savior. So he told Noah to make an ark. He gave him all the details. He told him exactly what to do. And Noah did everything that God commanded him, just as he had been told. 

Fast forward 100 years. The 120 years of patience and grace had come to an end. Nothing had changed. The world was still completely corrupt. God told Noah it was time. So Noah and his family and all of the animals went into the ark. And God shut them in, ensuring their protection. A week later it started to rain. All of the fountains for the deep burst open. The floodgates of the sky were opened. And it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. And the waters rose more than 20 feet above the highest mountains. Everything on the earth was wiped out. For 150 days the waters completely covered the earth. 

But God had not forgotten Noah. And so after 150 days, the waters started to recede. The floodgates and the fountains were closed. The rain ceased. And the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Noah sent out a raven to see if it could find a place to rest its feet. And then the same with a dove, but the dove came back. He waited a week and tried again, and the dove came back again, only this time it had a branch in its mouth. He waited one more week and sent the dove out again, and this time it didn’t return.

For a year and ten days, life on earth was hanging by a thread. Every human being, every bird, and every land animal on the face of the earth was on the ark. Around the ark swirled only danger and death. But after a year and ten days, God had proven his ability to preserve life even in the most perilous of circumstances. Everyone and everything that had entered the ark before the flood came back out alive. 

“God spoke to Noah. He said, “Go out of the ark—you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of every sort that is with you, all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may swarm over the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” Noah went out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives along with him. Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever swarms on the earth went out of the ship, species by species.”

And the first thing Noah does is build an altar. Nevermind shelter, nevermind food. The first thing he does is rest his heart in God. He shows his gratitude, gratitude prompted by God’s amazing generosity. They didn’t deserve it. Yet God had come to the rescue. He brought Noah rest. He brought Noah comfort. He kept his promise. His undeserved generosity overflowed and it moved Noah and his family to gratitude. He offered an “olah”, a thank offering, an offering where the sacrifice was completely burned up. The offering was totally dedicated to God. And what happened? “The Lord smelled the pleasant aroma. The Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the soil anymore because of man, for the thoughts he forms in his heart are evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike every living thing, as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”” 

We lose a little bit in translation, but the word we read as pleasant sounds an awful lot like “Noah” in the Hebrew. The smell of that sacrifice was a rest-bringing smell, a comforting smell. And it pleased our rest-giving God. And he made a covenant with Noah, with the animals, with the world. Everything, all of creation was covered. And what was that promise? Even though the world was sinful, even though they deserved to be cursed because of sin, God was not going to curse the world again, he wasn’t going to wipe everything out again. Yes, there will be an end to the world. Yes, Judgment Day will eventually come. But until that time, God is going to preserve the world. “Seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.”

Our God is a Rest-Giving God. Just think of the rest, the comfort those words brought to Noah and his family. God’s abundant, undeserved generosity, the gift of rest that he gave produced gratitude. And it wasn’t just at the end. We can see this theme of rest in the whole story: in Noah’s name, when the ark comes to rest on the mountains of Ararat, when the birds could find no place to rest their feet, when the smell of the sacrifice brought rest. Our God is a Rest-Giving God. His generosity produces rest, produces gratitude. Or at least it should. 

Do you feel at rest? Hardly? Grateful? If we are honest, we realize we don’t feel at rest, we don’t always feel grateful. Why is that? What’s happening in our lives when we’re not at rest, when we’re not grateful? Where’s our focus? Is it on ourselves? Times are tough for many people right now. When we get caught up in all the things that are happening, and how it’s up to us to fix it, is that why we can’t seem to find rest? Perhaps, we don’t see God as generous. Perhaps we think that we deserve more.  And maybe we think to ourselves that it shouldn’t be tough for us because we worship God, we go to church regularly. I’m his child after all, why should those who ignore him and even mock him be better off than me? Is God really generous to me compared to so many others? 

Friends, our rest is absent, our gratitude suffers when we lose sight of who we really are, of what we really deserve, and of what we’ve been given. This story makes it abundantly clear that we are sinful. “The thoughts he forms, (we form) in his heart (in our hearts) are evil from his youth.”  What we deserve is to be wiped off the face of the earth. We should never find rest in God. But God has not given us what we deserve. Instead, like with Noah, God has come to our rescue. He’s given us his grace, the exact opposite of what we deserve. He sent his Son, Jesus to be our “olah”, the sacrifice completely dedicated to God. By preserving Noah on the ark, God preserved the line of the Savior so that we could have rest for our souls through the forgiveness that Jesus won. 

Our God is a Rest-Giving God! We are just like Noah on that ark. We are completely dependent on God for everything. And so it’s not surprising that the picture of Noah and his family on the ark would be applied to us today. Peter writes: “In this ark a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you–not the removal of dirt from the body but the guarantee of a good conscience before God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”  We have peace, we have rest before God through his life-giving gift of Baptism. Just like the water saved Noah and his family, the waters of baptism save us. They give us rest. And God’s generosity doesn’t stop there! He gives us rest through his Word as he tells us exactly what he’s done for us, how he’s done everything for us. He gives us rest in his Supper as he assures us that he offered up his body and blood as the sacrifice for all of our sins and that same body and blood which we eat and drink provides us with forgiveness, with spiritual rest. And best of all, he promises an eternal rest forever with him in heaven.

When we remember this, when we focus properly on God and his grace, we can’t help but rest, we can’t help but be grateful. We can’t help but show our gratitude with our praises and our prayers. We can’t help but thank God with our offerings. This is what faith does. And this is the gift that God has given to each of you! Our national day of Thanksgiving is a little more than a month away. But let’s not wait until then to show our gratitude. Let’s make gratitude a never-ending cycle. Let’s day by day focus on God and his grace and that gratitude will overflow naturally. And like Noah, let’s bask in the rest that our Rest-Giving God has given us. Amen.