A Remake

GETTING STARTED

We’ve all been there—the computer just doesn’t work! You have tried almost everything, and the colorful wheel of frustration is still spinning on the screen. Ask the professionals, and they will tell you the best and easiest solution is to reboot it or unplug it and try again. Any unsaved information is forever lost. When writers or moviemakers do a reboot of a story, they consider all previous knowledge irrelevant to the new story. A remake is when they use the same storyline and expound on it. Today we will see how God didn’t do a total reboot but rather a remake.

  • What are the things in your life that you would remake or do differently if given the chance?

READ THE WORD: GENESIS 8:20-9:7 (ESV)

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.”

9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”

English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

DIGGING DEEPER

  1. What did the Lord say he will never do again (vs. 8:21)? What will not cease?
  2. In verses 9:1 and 9:7, what phrase is repeated? Noah was given the same command as Adam—”be fruitful and multiply.” God reconfirmed his covenant to bless humankind and give them everything on earth.
  3. What does “be fruitful and multiply” mean to you? How do we live that out?
  4. What are the promises God gave to Noah in verses 8:21-22 and 9:1-2? In what ways do you benefit from or participate in those promises?

RESPOND TO GOD

The first thing Noah did after getting out of the ark was give thanks to God for surviving the flood. The first thing God did was make a covenant that he would never again flood the earth. There was a literal restart and a restating of the same commands that God gave to Adam. Noah was to be fruitful and multiply, and God continued to give people dominion over all living creatures. God was reassuring humankind that God still loved us and still had a great plan of redemption for us. Just as God promised Adam a way of redemption, he promised Noah, too.

  • God is full of renewing stories. Take a minute to recount with God the ways your life has been or needs to be renewed.
  • Thank God that he has renewed you and given you a second chance through faith.
  • Ask God for his mercy and help in the areas where you need renewal and hope.