Sunday, April 19, 2020 - when we want the wilderness to end

Making Sense of the Wilderness - Noah: when we want the wilderness to end

Prayer

Genesis 8:1-5                                                                      Common English Bible Translation

God remembered Noah, all those alive, and all the animals with him in the ark. God sent a wind over the earth so that the waters receded. The springs of the deep sea and the skies closed up. The skies held back the rain. The waters receded gradually from the earth. After one hundred fifty days, the waters decreased; and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day, the ark came to rest on the Ararat mountains. The waters decreased gradually until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the mountain peaks appeared.

(Question: Have you ever been anxious for your life to change?)

Genesis 8:6-9

After forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made. He sent out a raven, and it flew back and forth until the waters over the entire earth had dried up. Then he sent out a dove to see if the waters on all of the fertile land had subsided, but the dove found no place to set its foot. It returned to him in the ark since waters still covered the entire earth. Noah stretched out his hand, took it, and brought it back into the ark.

(Question: Have you ever been disappointed by the timing of events?)

Genesis 8:10-12

He waited seven more days and sent the dove out from the ark again. The dove came back to him in the evening, grasping a torn olive leaf in its break. Then Noah knew that the waters were subsiding from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent out the dove, but it didn’t come back to him again.

(Question: How many times to you attempt something before you get discouraged?)

Hymn: Great Is Thy Faithfulness

Genesis 8:13-14

In Noah’s six hundred first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters dried up from the earth. Noah removed the ark’s hatch and saw that the surface of the fertile land had dried up. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day, the earth was dry.

(Question: How does your perspective change when you look back on events you found difficult?)

Genesis 8:15-19

God spoke to Noah, “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you all the animals of every kind-birds, livestock, everything crawling on the ground – so that they may populate the earth, be fertile, and multiply on the earth.” So Noah went out of the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. All the animals, all the livestock, all the birds, and everything crawling on the ground, came out of the ark by their families.

(Question: What are you looking forward to after this time of staying at home?)

Great Is Thy Faithfulness 

Prayers of the People and the Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, 

on earth as it is in heaven. 

Give us this day our daily bread,

And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us;

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil

For thine is the kingdom and the power 

and the glory, forever.  Amen

Hymn: How Great Thou Art

Blessing

Song List (to listen to from wherever you get your music)

To God Be the Glory

Thine Be the Glory

Holy Ground

Scars – TobyMac