A New Beginning

Genesis chapter 8. We're going to talk about new beginnings today. So in Genesis chapter 8, as we begin again anew, afresh, we're going to look at Noah and his family, but we want to go beyond that because Genesis chapter 8, like Genesis chapter 1, is all about God.

If you miss that in the story of the flood, like if you missed it in the story of creation, you come up with all kinds of ideas as to what really happened. But if you see the story revealing the majesty of God, then you're able to understand more of your great creator and follow him in obedience. So this morning our desire is to look at just four points about the new beginning, and from those four points I promise you will leave today encouraged.

You will leave today excited about what God has called you to do, and thus be better equipped to serve him. Genesis chapter 8, verse number 1, the first four words, but God remembered Noah.

The first thing that Genesis chapter 8 teaches us is that God remembers his people. God remembers his people. Can you imagine Noah coming out of the ark and looking over the face of the land? Over all that which was demolished and destroyed, and what would go through his mind. But here was Noah on this boat with his family for 378 days, give or take a few, and God remembered Noah. It's not an incidental remark. It's not that God forgets. It's not like God was so busy causing this worldwide catastrophe, and it was so busy doing that, that he forgot about the little boat with eight people in it, and all those animals, and like he was almost, oh gee, Noah, I'm so sorry I forgot all about you.

Here, let me, let me recede the water here so that you can, can come out and on dry land. No, it's not that at all. There's a whole book in the Bible, the book of Zechariah, is about how God remembers his people. That's a very important theme as you go through the scriptures, how God remembers his people. It's a reminder of how faithful God is to his people, that God always remembers his word and keeps his word to his people. You see, God had made a statement that the seed of a woman would crush Satan.

He made that statement. That had not taken place yet. God is a God of his word. It will happen just exactly as he said. So God wasn't finished fulfilling what he had said, and so he remembered Noah. It says in Psalm 9, verse number 12, that God remembers the afflicted. Maybe you're here today and, and you're afflicted. The Bible says that God remembers the afflicted.

It's good to know that God remembers, not because of our performance, but because of who he is. If you read on the text in Genesis chapter 8, God would know continually that the heart of man would be wicked. We'll look at that in a few moments.

He knew that Noah was depraved. He knew that Noah was a sinner. But God didn't remember Noah because of Noah. God remembered Noah because of God. God is always faithful to keep his word. God remembers his people. We should be thankful for that. It says in Philippians 1, 6, being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it into the day of Christ. If you have trouble remembering that God remembers you, Philippians 1, 6 needs to be a verse that you commit to memory.

Paul would say, I am confident. Paul was in prison, by the way, when he said it. Being confident of this very thing, that he who began his work in me is going to complete that work in me until the day of Jesus Christ. We, as the people of God, need to remember that God is in a working out process in us. Working out his good. Working out his glory. Ultimately for our benefit. But he's going to work it out his way. And we need to be confident that no matter what my situation, no matter how I believe or feel that maybe God has abandoned me, no matter where I may be all alone in my life, God is working out his due process.

That somehow I will better glorify him. You need to get that today. God remembered Noah. God had a plan for Noah. God had a plan for the world. It would come through Noah and his family. God has a plan for the world today. God wants to use you to enact his plan. So you need to be confident that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. The psalmist said in Psalm 57 verse number 2, I cry out to God, most high, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. God fulfills his purpose for me.

God has a purpose for me. So I cry out to the one who can do that. That's God Almighty. But there's something interesting here as you read on in verse number 1. But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark. Now for all you animal lovers out there who are so upset with me when I rag on your animals, I want to know something. God is concerned about your animals. Not only did God remember Noah and his family, God remembered the animals too. God has deep concern for his creation if God cares for those animals.

How much more does he care for you who are made in his image, right? Matthew 6 is all about that. About not being anxious for what you're going to wear or what you're going to eat. And then it uses the illustration of the birds. How God feeds the birds. If he feeds the birds of the air, how much more will he feed his own children? If he clothes the flowers of the field, how much more will he clothe you? And Christ goes on to say in Matthew chapter 6, don't be like the Gentiles. They worry about what they're going to wear.

They worry about what they're going to eat. Anytime you worry about where your next meal is going to come from, anytime you worry about what clothes you're going to wear next, you act like the pagans do. And so Christ says, don't be anxious for those because don't you know that your Father in heaven knows you have a need for those things?

He will take care of you because God always remembers his people. Genesis chapter 8 teaches us that God remembers his people. The second thing that Genesis chapter 8 teaches us is that God reveals his power.

God reveals his power. It does no good for for God to remember his word to you if he's not strong enough to fulfill that word. It does no good for God to say I'm going to take care of you if he can't. He can. That's good to know. So Genesis chapter 8 teaches us about how God reveals his power. It says, excuse me, second part of verse number one, and God caused a wind to pass over the earth and the water subsided.

And the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed and the rain from the sky was restrained. And the water receded steadily from the earth and at the end of 150 days the water decreased. And in the seventh month on the seventeenth day of the month the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. And the water decreased steadily until the tenth month. In the tenth month on the first day of the month the tops of the mountains became visible.

Then it came about at the end of 40 days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. And he sent out a raven and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove from him to see if the water was abated from the face of the land. But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot. So she returned to him into the ark for the water was on the surface of all the earth. Then he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark to himself.

So he waited yet another seven days and again he sent out the dove from the ark. And the dove came to him toward evening and behold in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth. Then he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove but she did not return to him again. Now it came about in the six hundred and first year in the first month on the first of the month the water was dried up from the earth.

Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked and behold the surface of the ground was dried up and in the second month on the 27th day of the month the earth was dry.

God reveals his power specifically in three ways. Number one is in the restraining of the water. Number two the receding of the flood.

And number three the resting of the ark. We've spent some time looking at these already but I just want to reiterate in your mind the power of God. Power belongs to God Psalm 62 11. Power doesn't belong to anybody else. Power belongs to God. If at any time you obtain any kind of power it's because God allowed you to have that power because power belongs to God. He is a sole source of all power and he is the one who was able to restrain the floodwaters. The picture that the scriptures give is a constant upheaval of water being gushed out from the earth onto the earth from under the earth on top of the earth.

It was this continuous upheaval of water and then all of a sudden the waters subside. The Hebrew word is used one other time in the Old Testament and that is Esther chapter 2 verse number 1 which says this, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus was subsided it means to cease boiling. There was a boiling up of water on the face of the earth so that the globe then was covered and then God with a spoken word was able to subside that. That is he was able to restrain that. He was able to stop it. There was a constant upheaval of this water so much so that everything was taken up and everything on the earth was destroyed and the surface of the globe even was changed because of the force of the water.

But at a moment in a moment in time everything subsided. It ceased to boil because of the Word of God. When God speaks things happen. As you recall in Matthew chapter 8 when the disciples were on on the boat and there was a great storm that arose he was able to get up and say, be calm. And the water became like glass instantaneously because of a spoken word. When a man who was demon-possessed would come up to him he would rebuke the demons and they would flee just because of a spoken word. You see God has power over the forces of nature.

He has power over demonic forces. He is the all-powerful God. So when the Bible says that God remembers you even in the midst of your affliction, even in the midst of your distress, he remembers not just to bring it up to his memory.

He remembers so that he can begin to enact his power to fulfill his purposes for your life. That's the greatness of Genesis chapter 8 and a new beginning that all of us need to have if we're going to be what God wants us to be. And through the restraining of the waters we see the power of Almighty God. Now I know some of you out there thinking, well half of you out there are asleep, the other half I don't know what you're thinking, but you're probably thinking you know yeah yeah right yeah God's all-powerful that kind of stuff.

I know what you're thinking. He's powerful enough to do some things but he's not powerful enough to do all things, specifically my things. Remember being confident of this very thing that he who began a work is going to complete that work. He might not complete it the way you want to complete it. He might not take you down the path you want to go, but he's going to complete the work because he is all-powerful. The second thing I want you to see is is the receding of the flood.

It took about 75 days for the tops of the mountains to be seen. God caused a great wind. Now that word wind is the same word translated spirit in Genesis chapter 1. We know that's not the Spirit of God because God did not create the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is eternal in nature, right? So we know that this was a literal wind that God created just as he would create a wind in Exodus chapter 10 that would bring locusts into Egypt and later drive them into the sea. Just like in Exodus chapter 14 God had created a wind to open up the Red Sea and make a dry path for Israel.

In order for the waters to recede, God would have to do that, and he caused a great wind to blow across the globe so that after 75 days the tops of the mountains then were able to be seen. After 255 days the earth would finally be dry and no one his family would be able to go out.

Only God could do that. Nobody else could, only God could. And then there is the resting of the ark. You say, well what does that have to do with the power of God? A lot. How was that boat going to survive the upheaval on the globe? It was made to exact dimensions because God wanted to make sure that the ark was preserved, but the hand of God still was on that boat to preserve those in the boat. And then that vote would rest on Mount Ararat. And there are some today who believe that the ark is still there, and there are many documentaries that have been filmed that talk about the search of Noah's Ark.

And is that Noah's Ark? I don't know if it's Noah's Ark or not. Do I care if it's Noah's Ark? No, I don't care. Why? Because if it is Noah's Ark, once they find it, there'll be ten reasons why it's not Noah's Ark by all the skeptics. We've already learned that through Genesis chapter 1 and creation. I'm not looking for Noah's Ark. I'm looking for God. I'm looking for the blessed return of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But the resting of the ark, for God to preserve that, the Bible says in 1 Peter 1.5, we are kept by the power of God.

That ark is a tremendous illustration on how God protects His people amidst all the forces of evil on the outside. God protects His people, and that should cause us to rejoice. Why? Because my salvation is not dependent upon me. My salvation is dependent upon God. I don't have to keep being saved. God keeps me saved. God has saved me by His power. God will keep me by His power, and God will take me to His kingdom by His power, just as He preserved the ark and those on the ark by His power. And Genesis chapter 8 reveals to us the wonderful power of God as He remembers the people of God.

The third thing I want you to see is that not only does God remember His people and God reveal His power, but God reiterates His purpose.

It says in verse number 15, then God spoke to Noah saying, go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons, and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly 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 their families from the ark.

God gave an order, then Noah obeyed. God said, go out of the ark. I find it interesting that He says, come into the ark in Genesis chapter 7. In Genesis chapter 8 He says, go out from the ark. If the ark is a picture of our salvation, Christ is coming to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And then He says, go into all the world and preach the gospel. God gives an order to Noah. Noah, this is what you are to do, and I want you to be fruitful, and I want you to multiply.

Same thing He said in Genesis 128. He'll say it again next week in Genesis chapter 9. But God has a purpose, and that purpose is to reach the world with the gospel. That purpose is to fill the globe with people, because God is into people. He loves people. He sent His Son to die for people. God's orders have always been the same. You come unto Me, and then you go into the world. And then Noah's obedience. Noah did exactly what God said. You'd be like Paul said in Ephesians chapter 6, doing the will of God from the heart.

Do you do that? Do you do the will of God from the heart? Your heart is fixed on God, so much so that you want to fulfill His purposes to the nth degree. It teaches us about how God remembers His people, how God reveals His power, and how God reiterates His purpose. But fourthly, Genesis chapter 8 teaches us about how God reveals His promise. How God reveals His promise. It says in verse number 20, Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma, and the Lord said to Himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man. For the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth, and I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, sea time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. Two things I want you to see. Number one is Noah's worship, and number two, God's Word.

Noah comes out of the ark and immediately builds an altar. The first thing he does is worship God. I guess the most astounding thing about Genesis chapter 8 is not that God remembers us, but that we need to remember Him, and Noah did. The very first thing, build an altar, worship God.

That was Noah. His worship to God. He honored his Lord, and God would smell the fragrance of that offering and would be pleased. Second thing I want you to notice is God's Word.

God said, I will never again curse the ground on account of man. Even though, even though his heart is wicked, even though he's selfish, even though he's a sinner, I'm not going to curse the ground on account of him again. God gave His Word. God gave a promise. We'll look more about that next week in Genesis chapter 9 as we look at the covenant of God to Noah through the rainbow, but God keeps His Word.

He's a faithful God. We can bank on the fact that the sun is going to set today, don't we? We know that. We believe that. We know the sun will rise tomorrow. How do we know that? Because God set that in place to remind us of His Word, that He is a faithful God, as sure as the sun will set today, so you can be certain that God will keep His Word. God has a wonderful promise to you, and that promise is that He will give you eternal life, and save you from hell, and give you a life here on earth more abundant.

That's our God. He promised that. Do you want a new beginning? Then you remember, be reminded that God remembers His people. He never forgets you. He'll never forsake you. And because He remembers you, He wants to reveal His power. Let Him do that today. God will do that, and God has a purpose, and that purpose is that somehow you might represent Him to a world that needs to see Him as He wants to be seen, and God promises to be with you as you do it. Let's pray together.