Genesis 8:15-22
15 Then God said to Noah, “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.
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. 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.”
God’s Grace Inspires Our Gratitude
It had been exactly a year and 17 days since Noah last heard God speak. We know it was exactly a year and 17 days because Noah took meticulous notes. To be honest, you probably would have taken meticulous notes too had you been through what Noah and his family had.
For the first 480 years of his life, Noah lived in a world that God himself described as corrupt and full of violence.[1] This was God’s honest assessment of Noah’s neighbours:
The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.[2]
And yet, miraculously, Noah was somehow able to remain “a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time,” and someone who “walked with God.”[3]
And then God spoke to Noah the first time:
So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood… Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you.”[4]
It was a harsh reality and a stern judgment, but a gracious promise – that God would not only spare Noah and his family, but a representative mating pair from every species of animal on earth. And for the next 120 years Noah dedicated himself to doing exactly what God told him to do.
Then, in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month[5] the rain started to fall, and it didn’t stop for 40 days and 40 nights. Even after the rain stopped, it took another 10 months for the water to recede before Noah and his family and all those animals could safely leave the ark.
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…” So Noah came out.[6]
Imagine what it must have felt like to set foot on dry ground after a year and 17 days and to walk into a brand new world. There must have been this overwhelming sense of relief. They didn’t have to be afraid of their neighbours anymore. They didn’t have be concerned about negative influences on their children or grandchildren. They didn’t have to lock their doors at night. The flood gave them – and the world – a clean slate.
Imagine how the flood made Noah and his family feel about God – that he chose them to live; that he kept them safe through it all; that he even kept every animal on board alive; that after all was said and done, God not only remembered them but promised them a fruitful and prosperous future.
We don’t have to imagine how Noah and his family felt about God. We can see how they felt in the first thing they did after disembarking.
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.[7]
The first thing Noah does is build an altar. Not a house. Not an outhouse. Not a barn. An altar. It would have taken time. It would have taken effort finding the right stones and stacking them. It would have been the first permanent structure on the face of the entire planet after the flood.
The first thing that Noah did was to build an altar, i.e. a place to offer sacrifices, a place to show his appreciation and gratitude for everything that God had done for him. Imagine how difficult it must have been to sacrifice one of the only 7 sheep in the entire world! This was no small thing! Proportionately speaking, this is easily the largest, most generous sacrifice in the history of the world – one seventh of an entire species!
Had Noah been more practical he might have persuaded himself to save that sheep. One more sheep on earth could have sped up the repopulation of the planet so much more quickly. But in that moment, Noah wasn’t being practical. He was being thankful. His thankfulness for God’s grace not only made him generous, but it also demonstrated his ongoing trust in God. Noah trusted that God could still replenish the sheep population with only 6 of the 7 that had been on the ark.
God’s grace and generosity toward Noah inspired Noah’s gratitude and trust in God. And the sacrifice that Noah made was so pleasing to God that God made a promise:
“Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”[8]
The sacrifice that Noah made may have been the largest in history, but the promise that God made was even greater. It was a promise that didn’t just apply to Noah and his family, or the animals that were with them on the ark. It was a promise that applied to the entire planet for the rest of history, and is a promise that we are still enjoying today.
Do you like autumn? Do you like when the seasons change, and even though you have to put away your shorts and t-shirts, now you get to drink pumpkin spice lattes in cozy sweaters? You have this passage to thank for that.
Do you ever go to bed at night afraid that the sun won’t come up in the morning? Of course not! The sun will always come up tomorrow. You have this promise to thank for that.
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”[9]
The cycle of the seasons and the rising of the sun are not inevitable. They are a daily miracle of God’s faithfulness and love, and they are a promise of God’s providence that still applies today.
The grace and mercy and generosity that God showed to Noah and his family still applies today too.
What was the world like before the flood? Corrupt and violent. What is the world like today?
What were people like before the flood? Every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil all the time. What are people like today? What are we like today?
I promise you, the world we live in – and those of us who live in it – are not better than it was before the flood. If this was the world of Noah’s day, God surely would have sent a flood to wash all our wickedness away. Why doesn’t he do it again? Two reasons.
First, because of this promise. God keeps his promises. If he says he will never curse the ground because of man again, he won’t. But even more, it’s because of another promise he kept, this time not to cleanse the world, but to save it.
God doesn’t have to send a flood to reset the world in an attempt to fix the problem of sin. He already sent his Son. And even though every inclination of our hearts is still only evil all the time even from childhood, we are forgiven, not because of any sacrifice we make – even if we were to sacrifice a seventh of an entire species. We’re forgiven because of a sacrifice God made. And if you thought Noah was generous in his gratitude to God, God is even more generous in his grace to us. He was even willing to sacrifice his one and only Son for you.
That’s the thing that stands out to me more than anything else in this passage:
“Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.”[10]
God did not make this promise because Noah and his family were so good. Read the next chapter! You’ll see that Noah and his sons were sinners too. God did not make this promise in the hope that humans would be better now than they were then. We are most definitely not!
God did not make this promise because of anything we are or do. God made this promise because of who he is and because of what he has done for us. He shows us love that we don’t deserve. He sacrificed more than we could ever offer. And he continues to bless us, e.g. with the rising of the sun every morning, with a harvest every Fall, with pumpkin spice lattes and cozy sweaters, but most of all, with the everlasting promise of his faithful love demonstrated by the sacrifice of his Son on a cross for you.
In a way, every Sunday is a re-enactment of Genesis 8. In a way, every time you walk out those doors after worship it is as if God is opening the door of the ark for you on a brand new clean slate. The wickedness of the world isn’t washed away, but the sin of your heart is. What are you going to do to show your gratitude?
Please don’t build an altar in our parking lot before you go home. Please don’t kill 14% of an entire species to show your thankfulness to God. Don’t copy Noah, but you can learn from him:
Don’t wait. The instant you become aware of God’s generosity and grace in your life – the instant you recognize some blessing, whether it’s a green light on your way to work or a healthy baby home from the hospital – stop and thank God right away. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Pray like my less-than-two-year-old: “Thank you Jesus. Amen.”
At the same time, don’t skimp. Don’t make that simple prayer a throwaway thought or a castoff comment. It doesn’t have to be elaborate – I’m sure Noah’s altar was no Sistine Chapel – but it should be sincere.
Be generous. Sometimes it is better to be thankful than practical. When we sacrifice to God something that is important to us, whether that is our time, money, energy or effort, it demonstrates true trust that God will still provide for us despite the impracticality of our sacrifice to him. And that’s his promise. He will always provide for you. That is what this holiday is all about.
God is generous and faithful in his grace to you. Be generous and faithful in your gratitude to him. Amen.
[1] Genesis 6:11
[2] Genesis 6:5
[3] Genesis 6:9
[4] Genesis 6:13,14,17,18
[5] Genesis 7:11
[6] Genesis 8:15,16,18
[7] Genesis 8:20
[8] Genesis 8:21,22
[9] Genesis 8:22
[10] Genesis 8:21