Articles
“A Fresh Start?”
18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. 20 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. 21 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. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
Genesis 8:18-22
A new year provides an opportunity for a fresh start. But does it? Isn’t January 1 just another day? The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that we often lack the resolve to keep them. We inevitably ruin our new year with old habits. And if we believe all the new-year-means-a-new-me stuff, this makes us feel like we’ve blown our chance and the only option is to wait for another new beginning to roll around so we can start again.
There is such a thing as a fresh start and a new beginning but we have to avoid the myth that we must wait for some drastic event or a significant date on the calendar to make positive changes in our lives. Relapses happen but that doesn’t mean we have to scrap everything and start over. We just need to press on by God’s grace and take the next step.
Noah’s story illustrates this truth. If anyone had a fresh start it was Noah. He was a righteous man living in a world where “every intention of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil continually.” (Gen. 6:5) Noah and his family were saved from the destructive flood waters by God’s grace through faith. When they stepped off the ark they stepped into a new world. You might say they had a fresh start.
Things began well when they disembarked. Noah built an altar to the Lord and honored him with a sacrifice. The Lord responded by promising he would never again destroy the world by water (Gen. 8:18-22). The reason for this promise comes in verse 21: “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Apparently the flood did not rid the human race of evil. God knew we had a heart problem that would continue to infect subsequent generations. Yet, despite our condition, God promised that the world would not get stuck in an endless loop of increasing evil, divine judgment and newness. Creation would continue until the very end (2 Pet. 3:1-13). “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (8:22). So the world’s future did not depend on man’s morality but on God’s mercy. This is why God gave us the sign of the rainbow, to remind us of the covenant he made between himself and “all flesh that is on the earth” (9:16-17).
The next chapter illustrates this. It tells of Noah’s drunkenness and Ham’s utter disdain for his father’s honor (9:18-25). The ink had barely dried on God’s covenant before the curse sunk its claws into creation again (cf. 3:14-19). At this point, Noah and his family had a choice. Will they say, “We’ve ruined this brand new world. We're doomed to be sinners so we might as well continue down this road of rebellion because it’s too late for us”? Or will they say, “God be merciful to us! Help us take the next step by faith and move forward by your grace”?
This text teaches us three practical lessons about fresh starts.
We take old weaknesses into our new beginnings — Whenever we make a fresh start, whether it is a new year, a new job, getting married or moving to a new area, we must understand there will be setbacks. Some of these will come from our bringing old failings into new situations. Knowing this humbles us before God. We cannot move forward in life by depending on “the flesh” because it is weak. When we rely on our own moral perfection and fail, we may think our fresh start is irrevocably ruined. But our progress does not depend on our perfection.
God’s mercy makes moral progress possible — Progress ultimately depends on God’s mercy. When we come to God with broken hearts, he can renew us through his forgiveness (Psa. 51:10). That mercy allows us to move forward. But grace is no get-out-of-jail free card, an excuse for sinners to sin. God wants to work within his forgiven people: “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:13) Grace transforms us to serve him with divine strength (1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Tim. 2:1). Grace teaches us to progressively say no to sin and yes to God (Titus 2:11-14). Just as Noah moved forward by God’s mercy and covenant promise, we too can move past our sins.
When we fail, don’t wait for another fresh start — We don’t need a new year or an outward change in our circumstance to tell us when to change. God’s “steadfast love never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning” (Lam. 3:22-24). If you want to start reading your bible every day but you skip a day or two, that doesn’t mean you should scrap your plan. Just pick it up the next day. If you want to stop losing your temper but you blow your top, don’t wait for another fresh start. Ask for forgiveness and move on.
The only real fresh start we are given is new birth in Christ (Jn. 3:5). This is where we find God’s steadfast love, evergreen mercy and strength to move forward. Peter says that our baptism corresponds to Noah’s story (1 Pet. 3:20-21). God can cleanse our conscience as he cleansed the world in Noah’s flood. And, like Noah, we can move forward based on God’s mercy and faithfulness.
