Re-Creation: Hope for a New Beginning

Introduction

Read Genesis 8:1-9:17

Genesis 8 (ESV)

But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.

In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. Then God said to Noah, “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

The Need for Hope

We see the theme of hope in much of our modern day media, especially in regards to many of our epic fantasy and sci-fi stories.

Hope is the thing that carries people from the darkness of their circumstances to the light of victory. The very first Star Wars film was subtitled, “A New Hope,” a story about a people under tyranny and oppression as they struggled for freedom. When out of a tiny remote planet came a farm boy who would rise to become the hero that would defeat the mighty empire and bring the galaxy a hope that would reignite the fight for revolution.

In the Hunger Games, the main villain, President Snow, as he maintained his control over the country, wanted to control the hope that people felt.

God Brings the Hope of a New Beginning

There is Hope because God Remembers Noah - God is Acting

Genesis 8:1 (ESV)

But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.

There is Hope Because God Breathes Life Back Into Creation

Genesis 8:11–12 (ESV)

And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.

There is Hope Because God Calls Noah out of the Ark - New Life!

Genesis 8:15–19 (ESV)

Then God said to Noah, “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.

God calls Noah and his family and all the animals out of the tomb of the ark. As they had been carried through death, so now God calls them out to life!

Should bring to mind another time in which Christ called someone out of a tomb and into life. Lazarus.

We have Hope - God is Making Us New Creatures in Christ

We are carried through death because of the death and burial of Christ. Jesus physically died to pay the penalty of our sin.

But there is no hope in simply knowing Christ has died for us.

Christ has not just died, He is risen and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

As Christ has been risen for us, we are promised to walk with Him in the newness of life!

Romans 6:3–4 (ESV)

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

We have been made new. If we are in Christ, we are no longer the people we once were. There should be a marked difference in who we once were and who we are and ultimately who God is making us to be.

Ezekiel 36:25–27 (ESV)

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

God has given us new hearts… We have new desires that seek to love and follow God rather than reject and rebel against Him.

Hope In God Will Respond with Patience and Perseverance

We need the hope of knowing that God has saved us and is making all things new because the world we live in is hard and will make us want to quit and give up!

Noah experienced God’s salvation, but think about what he was having to go through because God saved him.

He and his family will spend about 8 months or so on board of this massive boat with no electricity, no running water (imagine the irony), no active plumbing, no Uno or Poker cards, and filled with all kinds of animals.

Have you ever been to a Zoo? Have you considered the smells that come from each of the cages and exhibits?

I’m sure there were days in which Noah might have wondered, where is God in all this? When are we getting off this boat. Are we there yet, Lord?

He was saved, but he was still waiting for the final Word from God that it would be alright to exit the boat. So he was in between two worlds, the one he left behind before the flood, and the one that was awaiting for him when the waters would subside.

Noah had to wait and continue to trust in the Lord. His hope had to be in the Lord and the fact that God had not forgotten him but was continuing to work to make all things new, even if it would take months to see it come to fruition.

The prophet Isaiah addressed God’s people as they were complaining about the fact that God had forgotten about them. They were turning to idols to find answers because they thought God had quit thinking about them.

Isaiah 40:27–31 (NIV84)

Why do you say, O Jacob,

and complain, O Israel,

“My way is hidden from the Lord;

my cause is disregarded by my God”?

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

Like Noah, God has saved us but we are still awaiting the final salvation (Already but Not Yet)

We are in a similar condition. We are in between two worlds, the world of sin and death that Christ has saved us from, if we have placed our faith in Him, and the world that we are awaiting when He comes to take His people home to live in His presence for eternity. We are awaiting the New Eden, the new garden where we will get to walk with Christ and talk with Him face to face.

Like Noah, we must remember that God is still working.

As we are awaiting the final salvation of being brought into God’s presence, we must remember to keep pressing on and running the race Christ has set before us.

Paul writes to the Philippians in Philippians 3:8-14

Philippians 3:8–14 (ESV)

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul acknowledges that living by faith in the salvation Christ has given is not easy. It requires cost of giving up rights to ourselves and what we think we deserve for the sake of knowing Christ, but that knowing Christ is worth it to go through the sacrifice. He is going to press on and not give up.

It can be easy to get discouraged and to give up.

An age of deconstruction - we are living in a time when many prolific “leaders” are leaving the faith because they no longer view their faith as being relevant to the world they are living in. They lost hope in the Lord and began to trust in themselves or in the god of the age because they have become impatient to wait on what God is doing for His people.

It is also easy to get so confident in our own abilities we give up trusting in God.

A Spanish race walker missed out on a bronze medal after she celebrated a bit too early.

Laura García-Caro was in position to take third place at the European Athletics Championships in Rome when she draped her country’s flag on her shoulders, pumped her fist in the air — and was promptly passed by Ukrainian competitor Lyudmila Olyanovsk in the final two meters,

Sometimes we are tempted to give up following God because we think that somehow we are good enough to accomplish salvation on our own instead of trusting in the finished work of Christ.

But we must press on to the end. The question isn’t how did we start, the question will be how did we end?

In Revelation, Jesus speaks to the churches through the Apostle John. He writes letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor and with each church, Jesus mentions areas of their lives which tempt them to leave Him and to give up their faith in Christ. But He encourages them to overcome, promising that the over-comers will inherit the eternal life He has promised to all those who live by faith.

How do we grow in faith and perseverance?

We stay rooted in God’s Word, focused on Who He is and What He is Saying to Us.

And we continue to stay connected with one another, seeking to encourage each other and pushing each other to keep running the race!

Spanish athlete Iván Fernández Anaya was competing in a cross-country race in Burlada, Navarre. He was running second, some distance behind race leader Kenyan runner Abel Mutai. Mutai was a few meters from the finish line, but got confused by the signals and stopped, thinking he had finished the race.

The Spanish runner, Ivan Fernandez, was right behind him and, realizing what was happening in front of him, began shouting for the Kenyan to keep running.

Motai did not know Spanish and did not understand.

Fernandez pushed Mutai to victory. One reporter asked Evan, "Why did you do this?" Evan replied, "My dream is that one day we can have the kind of community life that pushes ourselves and others to win as well." "But why did you let the Kenyan win?" the reporter insisted. Evan replied, "I didn't let him win, he would win. It was his race."

The reporter insisted and asked again: "But you could have won!"

Evan looked at him and replied, "But what is the merit of my victory? What is the honor of this medal? What will my mother think?"

We need to be willing to help each other and push each other to the end. And we cannot forsake the gathering together because this life is hard and we need each other’s help to keep pressing on.

Hope Will Respond in Worship

When Noah exits the ark, he responds in worship and in sacrifice

Noah is acknowledging that everything belongs to the Lord and he is surrendering himself to the Lord.

Noah is remembering the grace of God and expressing gratitude to the Lord for His salvation.

And of course, he was saved from death through death that led to life. The sacrifice is a reminder that sin has a penalty for death. But it is also a looking forward to when and sin and death will be finally dealt with in the death of a better and greater sacrifice.

We are called to Worship.

We are called to surrender ourselves as living sacrifices to God (Rom. 12:1 )

Romans 12:1 (ESV)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

We no longer offer sacrifices because Christ is our ultimate sacrifice that has been paid once and for all.

However, we are called to be living sacrifices, Because Christ has died for us, we are to offer our bodies to Him as living sacrifices.

Why?

We are not our own, we have been bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19-20 )

1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (ESV)

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

We are called to remember the grace of God and to daily give Him thanks for His grace.

The Lord’s Supper - While we do not offer sacrifices, we regularly practice the Lord’s Supper which helps us remember the sacrifice that saved us.

And if we remember and acknowledge what God has done for us, we are going to live in gratitude for His grace.

Romans 1:18–21 (ESV)

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

We must daily walk in worship and gratitude and as we do so, we are reminded once again how God has saved us and reminded of how God is actively working to bring us to the final day of salvation in which we get to see Christ come again.