Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to Genesis chapter 8.
recently did a somewhat of a personality test, business related, and uh it identified a few things which I was already well aware of and so was my wife, that uh I like new things
uh and I like thinking about the future.
I spend a great deal of time considering what is to come and imagining what can be.
which means I like the end of a year, because it means there's a new one coming.
It means there's the opportunity to consider what is coming ahead of us.
As I was thinking about the fact that as we are here in midway through the month of December, we are approaching a new year, it was of interest to me to note
that there is a new year.
As a matter of fact, there is a first day of the new year mentioned in the events of Noah.
In Genesis chapter 8, we read about a brand new year.
In Genesis chapter 8 and verse 13, and it came to pass in the 601st year.
In the first month,
the first day of the month that the waters were dried up from the earth and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked and indeed the surface of the ground was dry.
As Noah and his family and the animals that were on the ark have gone through and endured the flood, as they have
obeyed God's command and done exactly what He had told them to do.
They arrive and embark upon a brand new year and upon reaching that point we're told by the text that the earth was dry.
And I think if we look at this text we're gonna find some lessons for us as we're thinking about a new year coming.
some lessons on how we should be expecting and what we should be expecting of ourselves in this coming year.
Consider that first, before this brand new year arrived, the previous year ended in salvation.
Sometimes we think about the flood as judgment, and it was.
It was judgment on a wicked earth.
In Genesis chapter 6, we're introduced to Noah, and we're told that Noah alone found grace in the eyes of the Lord, that he lived in a day and in a time where every thought of the
people that were on the earth was only evil continually.
And yet,
in 1 Peter chapter 3, Peter, as he is writing to Christians, as he is writing to those who live in the New Testament, will tell them about the salvation that is found in baptism.
And notice what he says.
If you go back in 1 Peter chapter 3 and you look about verse 18,
to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the
divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water." As Peter uses the Old
Testament picture of Noah,
to describe the New Testament salvation that he's going to discuss in verse 21, he points first to the sacrifice of Christ, to the work of Christ, but then he discusses the
long-suffering of God, which he says waited in the days of Noah.
What was the long-suffering of God waiting on?
It was waiting on the building of the ark.
It was waiting on Noah to complete that work.
And so the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah.
But did you notice the statement there at the end of verse 20 when he describes Noah, the ark being prepared in which a few, that is eight souls, and notice the phrase, were saved
through water.
Noah was not saved by the boat.
Now you might say, wait a minute.
No, no, Noah was on the boat and the boat is what saved him from the flood.
No, you're wrong.
Yes, Noah was on the boat.
Yes, the ark saved him from the flood, but he wasn't being saved from the flood.
It was the flood that was saving Noah from the iniquity and immorality in the world.
You see, the judgment of God that came through the flood was the salvation of Noah at the same time.
It is the destruction of that world and its population that was the salvation of Noah.
And so Peter says that Noah was saved through water.
The end of the year,
prior year in the life of Noah.
Noah experienced salvation.
Salvation from a world filled with iniquity.
Salvation from a culture and a people whose only thought was only evil continually.
Noah was saved through water.
Now, verse 21, Peter writes, there is an antitype which now saves us.
He says, look back there at the flood, the flood saved Noah.
And that picture is the picture of something that's very, very real in the life of every Christian.
He says that there is an antitype which now saves us, baptism.
Not the removal of the filth of the flesh.
He says that baptism is not about washing dirt off of you.
Rather, he said, it is the answer of a good conscience
toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
He ties the beginning of his discussion with the sacrifice of Christ to the salvation that is found in baptism.
He says, you're being buried, not into a pool to get rid of dirt, but you are being buried and immersed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Now, Paul writes more about that in Romans chapter six, verses three through six, and you can do a study on that, which is worthwhile.
But our focus here is that in the life of Noah before a brand new year began, before all of the things that we're about to discuss were implemented and taken place, Noah was in a
right relationship with God before any of the rest of it got started.
You're looking at your life this morning and you're realizing that you are not in a right relationship with God because you have not been obedient to His commandments.
Perhaps you have not been obedient to His commandments to become a member of the body of Christ, to put on Christ by baptism as Peter describes it.
To have your sins washed away as Ananias came to Saul of Tarsus in Acts chapter 22 verse 16 and said,
Why are you tarrying?
Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins.
Not then obedient to the command that Peter, the same one who was writing this, gave to the people on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 when they said, men and brethren,
what shall we do?
Because they had been convicted of the fact they had crucified the very Son of God.
And Peter responded to them, repent and be baptized for the remission of your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.
As you examine that command,
God commands each and every person today to first enter in a right relationship with Him.
If you don't take step one, all the other steps won't matter.
All the other actions won't matter.
All the other plans won't matter.
But then consider that if you are not faithful in your righteousness to God as Noah was, it won't matter.
There are those described in the history and the lineage of Noah, those like Melchizedek.
uh
Oh, I just lost his name.
The man who was the longest person who lived, the longest of anybody we ever have record of.
Somebody help me.
Methuselah, thank you.
It starts with an M, but wrong name.
Methuselah lived in the days of Noah.
Methuselah died the year of the flood.
But Methuselah was not saved in the flood.
If you begin the walk of faithfulness with God and yet you do not remain faithful unto death, there's no reward waiting for you.
We need to be those who, step one, make sure we are right in the eyes of God.
But then as we consider this new year which Noah experienced, consider
that the year began undoing what he had done.
If you turn there back to Genesis chapter 8, and you notice again Genesis chapter 8 and then verse 13, you'll notice that the text says, then, sorry, let me get one more page,
chapter 8 verse 13, and it came to pass in the 601st year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth.
and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked and indeed the surface of the ground was dry.
Now, not so long ago Noah was building the ark.
Noah was constructing the covering of the ark.
And now here we are just a short time later and Noah's removing the covering of the ark.
He's deconstructing what he had constructed.
and you learn some lessons about life in this passage, that some things in life are temporary.
Some things in life aren't designed to last forever.
Some things that we do are designed to be temporary.
They are designed to be something that we do and then we're done with.
Believe it or not, when the flood was over,
Noah didn't suddenly redesign the ark into his new house.
He was done with that.
And it was time to move on.
As we think about the new year, as we think about what's coming in our lives, realize that it will be okay that at times there are things that we build and at times there will be
times to deconstruct the things that we build.
The Ecclesiastes writer says to everything there is a season and a time and a purpose under heaven.
We need to realize that there will be points in our lives where we have been building, we've been constructing, maybe it's planning for retirement, maybe it's setting aside
for...
Maybe it's legacy actions.
Maybe it's things that we should be planning for at a younger age.
And we reach a point where it's time to start using what we've been building.
But it's also a reminder that it is okay to walk away from things that are temporary.
It is okay to put behind us the things that are not eternal.
and Noah did, he began to deconstruct that which he had spent a hundred years building.
But then consider as well the year began with testing before action.
Now I mentioned that personality test, one of the things that it highlighted is testing before action is not one of my strengths.
Taking action is one of my strengths.
uh Fixing it when it doesn't work, right, one of my strengths.
Testing before acting, not one of my strengths.
But Noah was one who was careful in his actions.
Noah was one who tested before he did anything.
You go back to verse seven.
Then Noah sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth.
He sends out a bird.
The bird just keeps flying back and forth.
There's nowhere to land.
He goes back and forth, back and forth, continually.
Then he sent out, uh verse 8, he sent out from himself a dove to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground.
But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the hole earth.
So he put out his hand and took her and drew her into the ark to himself.
And he waited yet another seven days.
And again, he sent out the dove from the ark.
Then the dove came to him in the evening and behold a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth.
And Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.
So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore.
Noah had a plan.
Noah tested the plan.
Noah evaluated the actions and the things that needed to happen before he took.
Action!
If we're going to be successful in life, if we're going to be successful in 2026, we're going to test before we act.
We're going to develop plans and evaluations so that we can be sure that the things that we're doing are succeeding and growing and flourishing.
Noah needed to test before he acted.
In 1 John chapter 4, John writes to the Christians,
and he admonishes them, he encourages them to try the spirits.
He says, there are many false teachers, many false prophets who have gone out into the world.
As we evaluate our spiritual actions, we must be those who try the spirits.
We must be those who are willing to sit down with the Word of God and what someone is saying about the Word of God and compare it with the Word of God.
We need to be like those in the book of Acts, those Jews who were there, who listened to Paul, and they evaluated whether or not the things which he said were actually so.
They tested him against the Scriptures to see the truth of his message.
We need to be those who look at our lives, who look at our plans, and evaluate whether or not our plans
meet the requirements of Scripture.
We need to be those who consider whether or not the things that we're planning on doing, the things that we're expecting to do in 2026, actually meet what God would have us to do.
We need to test our plans before we act to make sure that we are doing that which is right in the eyes of God.
But then consider that the year also began with trusting God to provide.
As you notice there in the text, Noah sent out the dove.
First time the dove goes out, comes back, nowhere to put his foot.
The second time the dove goes out and comes back and it had plucked an olive leaf and it was in her mouth.
Now, the question might be asked if we think about the text, who planted the olive tree?
Where did the olive tree come from?
If you've got a leaf, you've a branch.
If you've got a branch, you've got a tree.
If you've got a tree, you at some point had a seed and something caused it to grow.
planted it?
You might remember that the text was quite clear that the flood waters exceeded above the highest peak of every mountain by quite some distance.
As a matter of fact, by the exact draft distance of the boat that they were riding in.
so it wasn't a leftover tree.
And yet God had provided for them.
As Noah and his family disembark from the boat, as they had remained on the boat after the waters had receded, God had already taken action to prepare a new world for them to live
in.
They didn't disembark
to a barren wasteland.
They didn't disembark to a world that had just been wiped out and annihilated, I was recently watching a video related to the atomic bomb and then the aftermath of those
explosions even in the test areas but also in World War II and the aftermath of the land when those were set off.
That's not what Noah stepped out to.
Noah sent the dove out and the dove came back with an olive leaf in his mouth.
And then Noah sends out the dove again and the dove doesn't come back at all.
Why?
Because the dove had found a home.
If you go over to Matthew chapter 6.
Jesus, as He is teaching the disciples and the crowds, will speak to them about their priorities, their worries, and their concerns.
In Matthew chapter 6 and verse 24, Jesus says, no man can serve two masters.
For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.
Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor your body, what you will put on, is not life more than food and the body more
than clothing.
Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not of more value than they?
Which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to his stature?
So why do you worry about clothing?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.
They neither toil nor spin, yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Now if God so closed the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
Therefore do not worry, saying, What shall we eat?
or what shall we drink?
or what shall we wear?
For after all these things the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God.
and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Jesus is, He is teaching the people what they
should be considering, what they should be working towards, what they should be planning about.
He admonishes His disciples, why are you worrying about what you're going to eat?
Why are you worrying about what you're going to drink?
Why are you worrying about what you're going to wear?
Have you not seen the birds?
How God provides for them.
They don't toil, they don't spin.
They're not industrious every day, yet they wake up in the morning and they're singing and they're provided for as
Noah disembarked from the ark.
God had already provided for the birds of the air.
God had already provided for the things that would be needed.
Noah began the year trusting God to provide, waiting for the time to disembark from the ark because God had provided for them while they were there, and God was providing a new
earth for them to live in when they got off.
But then consider the year began waiting on the command of the Lord.
As you think about the text here in Genesis chapter 8, you'll notice verse 13 that, yes, he begins to remove the covering from the ark.
But then verse 14, and in the second month, on the 27th day of the month, the earth was dried.
So January 1, if we were to use our modern calendar days and names, January 1 of the year, the text says the earth was dried.
He begins to remove the covering.
And yet we're all the way over here in February, the very next month, and we're still reading that the earth was dried.
But they're still on the boat.
Why are they still on the boat?
They're on the boat for a very, very good reason.
they had been commanded to get in the boat and they hadn't been commanded to get off the boat.
So we read in verse 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 cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound 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.
They were still on the ark after the first day of January where it says the earth was dried.
They were still on the ark in February on the 27th day of the month when the earth said it was, or the text says the earth was dried.
What were they waiting on?
They were waiting on command from the Lord.
as we consider how we're going to begin the year, as we consider what we're going to do in 2026 in our own lives.
May I encourage you to look at the commands of the Lord and say, that's what we're gonna do.
We're going to carry out the commands of the Lord.
Over in Acts chapter one, Jesus was
there with his disciples as he had been resurrected from the grave.
He had shown himself to many in that area who were his disciples.
He had presented himself, as 1 Corinthians chapter 15 tells us, to more than 500, and now he's preparing to ascend back into heaven.
And as that is happening, they say, Lord, will you at this time, verse 6, restore the kingdom to Israel?
And he said to them, It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority.
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.
And when he had spoken these things, while they watched, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight." Now, Jesus is going to leave them instructions.
And part of his instructions are, you wait in Jerusalem.
Part of their command was to wait.
And there are going to be times in our lives where part of our command is to wait.
Part of what we need to do is not be in a hurry to get ahead of the Lord.
and wait until the appropriate time.
Jesus commanded His disciples to start their mission as He ascended to heaven by waiting.
And Noah, rather, was here in the ark and He was waiting, waiting to obey the command of the Lord.
And so we're taught and we're
helped to understand that sometimes the thing that we'll be doing in life is waiting.
And sometimes we'll be acting.
And we need to have the discernment to know the difference in those times.
But then consider as well the year began with complete obedience.
As Noah begins to leave the ark,
as he begins to obey the command, notice what the command says, bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and cattle and every creeping thing that
creeps on the earth, so that they may abound 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 animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth according to their families went out of the ark.
In the same way that Noah had obeyed completely with meticulous attention to the command of the Lord, he had obeyed completely the command to build the ark, he had obeyed
completely the command to gather the animals, he had obeyed completely the command to get on the ark, he had obeyed completely.
So Noah
leaves in the same way.
He obeys the Lord to the specificity of what God commanded.
He obeys the Lord exactly as the Lord had spoken for him to do.
Now if we turn over to Colossians chapter 3, we realize that this is not just something that Old Testament individuals should do.
Rather, we read in Colossians chapter 3 verse 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord.
As Paul is writing to the church in Colossae, he says, I want you to allow the word of Christ to dwell in you.
I want you to take the Word of God and put it into your heart, into your mind, and into your life to such a degree that it comes out of your mouth in song.
But then he says, and whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
The idea of doing something in the name of.
is a picture, if you were to take an old, ancient uh idea here of someone arriving and they're a messenger from a king.
And they speak to you the word of the king and they say, the name of the king, do this.
That is to say, it came with the authority and the command of the king.
Paul, as he's writing to these Christians, says, whatever you do, in word or deed, it better have the authority of God behind it.
He is admonishing the church.
He is educating the Christians that what they are to do in their lives ought to have the authority
of God.
What they speak and what comes out of their mouth ought to have the authority of God.
What they do in worship ought to have the authority of God.
And if you look at your actions in life, if you look at your speech and your words, if you evaluate your worship and you go, well that doesn't exactly look like I've got any
authority for that.
Then Paul's telling you you need to fix it.
Paul's telling you you need to change it.
Noah is presenting you an example of exactly what you should do, which is you should carry out exactly what Christ said to do.
And you should not change it if you're going to be acceptable to God.
But then, not only did the year begin with complete obedience, it began with deliverance.
in Genesis chapter 8 verse 21.
as Noah comes forth from the ark, Noah is going to present an offering to the Lord.
We read verse 20, then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal, of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma.
uh
Then the Lord said in his heart, will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.
Nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.
While the earth remains seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.
Deliverance from judgment came not just to Noah, but to the entire planet because of Noah's obedience, because of Noah's willingness to keep the command of God.
So the entire planet was promised deliverance from this ever happening again.
If we're familiar with the account, we know that
Every time we see a rainbow in the sky, we are to be reminded of that deliverance.
We are to be reminded of that covenant promise that never again will the Lord destroy the planet as He did on that day.
But we are also to remember, based upon many other passages, that there is coming a day where everything that is in this universe, everything that is physical will be burned up.
and when that day comes will we have deliverance.
In Colossians chapter 1, Paul, as he writes to the church at Colossae,
We'll write to this congregation.
He's writing to them about Christ.
He's writing to them about the church.
He's writing to them about the hope that they have in Christ.
And we find in Colossians chapter 1 and in verse 9, For this reason we also since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the
knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.
that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might according to His
glorious power for all patience and long-suffering with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom
of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were
created through Him and for Him." As you consider the Christ,
as you consider the Messiah.
He is the one who created all things.
He is the one who can deliver you from sin.
He is the one who can deliver you from judgment.
Will your year begin with deliverance?
Will your year begin with a right relationship with God?
But then lastly, when you look at this brand new year, it began with worship.
In Genesis chapter 8 verses 20 and 21, as Noah erects that altar, the text is presenting you with a mental picture that basically Noah gets off the ark, Noah's family gets off the
ark.
Noah carries out the command to get all the animals off the ark.
And Noah's first action, having left the ark, is to build an altar and to sacrifice to the Lord.
To give glory and honor and praise to the one who had saved him.
To the one who had delivered him.
And we are reminded in the text we've already read in Colossians chapter 3 that part of our life is to sing songs of praise, to worship the God who has delivered us, to honor His
name, and to offer the fruit, the sacrifice of our lips.
We are to be those who are concerned about many things in life.
We are to be those who are concerned about providing for those who we love.
We are to be those who are concerned about doing that which is morally right.
We are to be those who are concerned with doing that which is doctrinally right.
But we should certainly be those who are concerned about worshiping Him who is worthy of praise.
So as you plan your year,
May I encourage you to remember what James wrote in James chapter 4 as he writes to the Christians and he tells them that some of them were planning.
Some of them were thinking, you know what, we're going to go to this city and we're going to stay there a year and we're going to buy and we're going to sell and we're going to get
gain.
And he encourages them to rather say, if the Lord wills.
James is reminding them that what they will do in the coming year is what the Lord allows them to do.
But more importantly, he is encouraging them to prepare to prioritize the Lord first.
And whatever else comes, the greatest thing of greatest importance will already have been done.
And that is to prioritize the Lord.
If you're here this morning and you're outside the body of Christ, we encourage you to be obedient to the command of Christ.
To be saved through water the same way that Noah was and his family were.
To be saved as that anti-type describes, as Peter described it in baptism.
To have your sins washed away but not...
as a final step, as a beginning step.
Noah walked off that arc into a brand new world.
in a brand new year.
Now Noah wasn't perfect.
Noah wasn't sinless.
Noah has the only negative things described about him described after the flood, not before it.
But aren't we glad that we also have access to grace?
So that once salvation is found, we can remain in a right relationship with God.
And if we have departed from God, we can repent and return to Him and find forgiveness for our sins.
If you've began that walk, if you've began to obey and now you've turned back, why not repent?
come back to God and ask for forgiveness.
If you have need of anything, why not consider finishing this year and starting a new year on a right relationship with God?
If you have need of the invitation, why not come now as we stand