When It’s Time to Restart | Genesis | Full Experience

♪ I'm crashing down ♪ ♪ Was it me in the fire, yeah ♪ ♪ Has it me kept His promises ♪ ♪ A thousand generations, come on ♪ ♪ Has it me made a way, did it me make a way ♪ ♪ Won't He make a way for us, yeah ♪ ♪ He's working, He's working, He's working everything for good ♪ ♪ He's working, He's working, He's working everything for good ♪ ♪ He's working, He's working, He's working everything for good ♪ ♪ Hasn't He been so good to us ♪ ♪ Didn't He heal the broken ♪ ♪ Didn't He freely give His life, come on ♪ ♪ Wasn't the veil torn open, that's right ♪ ♪ Doesn't He call the dead to rise ♪ ♪ Awake a new creation, hey ♪ ♪ Hasn't He been so good, working it all for good ♪ ♪ Won't He be so good to us, hey, He's working, He's working ♪ ♪ He's working, He's working, He's working everything for good ♪ ♪ He's working, He's working, He's working everything for good ♪ ♪ Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh, He's working everything for good ♪ ♪ Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh, He's working everything for good ♪ ♪ Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh, He's working everything for good, hey ♪ ♪ Doesn't He still do miracles, right here in this moment? ♪ ♪ Right here in this moment, yeah ♪ ♪ So we pray for the impossible ♪ ♪ And believe that He will do it, yeah ♪ ♪ Hasn't He made a way, can He make a way? ♪ ♪ Won't He make a way, won't He make a way for us, hey ♪ ♪ Hasn't He made a way, can He make a way? ♪ ♪ Won't He make a way for us, I know, I know it, hey ♪

♪ And He will make a way for us ♪ ♪ He's working, He's working, He's working everything for good ♪ ♪ He's working, He's working, He's working everything for good ♪ ♪ Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh, He's working everything for good, yeah ♪ ♪ Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh, He's working everything for good, He is, He is ♪ ♪ He's working, He's working, He's working everything for good, He is working everything for good ♪ ♪ He's working, He's working, He's working everything for good. ♪ ♪ He's the God of all creation, He's been good through all the ages. ♪ ♪ Push or pull, He never changes, He never changes. ♪ He's the God who moves the mountains He reconciles the broken hearted And in Him we found redemption Thank You, Jesus Can we give Him glory today? Would you sing this? Glory to the One who holds it all Glory to the One who saved my soul To the One who I adore Praise the Lord Glory to the One who reigns on high Glory to the God who saves my life To the One who I adore Praise the Lord He's the God who never leaves us Faithful through the generations Church, we respond, come on So what else can we do but worship? Thank You, Jesus Glory to the One who holds it all Glory to the One who saved my soul To the One who I adore Praise the Lord Glory to the One who reigns on high Glory to the God who saves my life To the One who I adore Praise the Lord To the One who I adore Praise the Lord We give You glory Belongs to You, Jesus We join Heavens All honor and power to Jesus forever All honor and power to Jesus forever All honor and power to Jesus forever All honor and power to Jesus forever

All honor and power to Jesus forever All honor and power to Jesus Glory to the One who holds it all Glory to the One who saved my soul To the One who I adore Praise the Lord Glory to the One who reigns on high Glory to the God who saves my life To the One who I adore Praise the Lord To the One who I adore Praise the Lord All honor and power to Jesus forever All honor and power to Jesus forever All honor and power to Jesus forever All honor and power to Jesus National Quitter's Day and in their New Year's resolutions. Now this, as funny as that is, it kind of makes sense, because oftentimes we can find ourselves in this circle of trying something new, whether it's with our faith or our health and fitness, and we fail, and we fail, and we fail, and we quit. We become discouraged, and that can be frustrating. See, every week here at CCV, we take communion, and we take this time to pause, not to focus on ourselves, but to focus on what Jesus has already done. In the book of Ephesians chapter eight, chapter two, I'm sorry, verses eight through nine, it says this. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. You see, Jesus didn't give his life so that we could live our entire lives

trying to earn something that was freely given. You know, when we focus on our own measure, and we fail time and time again, oftentimes we're left with guilt and shame and discouragement, or we quit, but when we focus on Jesus, we experience hope and forgiveness and a peace beyond our understanding. So in this time, I just wanna invite you to drop the scorecard of your failures. National Quitter's Day, and I wanna encourage you to press forward in the finished work of Jesus, because communion isn't a time to prove our worth. It's a time to remember his. Heavenly Father, we just thank you so much for who you are. We thank you for Jesus, who set us free from the things that the enemy is trying to keep us slave to. Father, we love you, and we lift our gratitude up to you in Jesus' name, amen. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪

Well, this week we released our full 2025 annual report. If you didn't get it in your inbox, I would encourage you to get on our website or on our social media, or even on our app. And I wanna encourage everyone here, read through the whole entire annual report, because what it is, is it's a celebration, really, of not what we're doing, it's a celebration of what God is doing in our midst, and we just get to witness it. And when you read through the report, there's one number that just jumps off the page. In fact, I can't even wrap my mind around it. It's the number of people that gave their life to Jesus and were baptized just last year. And here's the total final number, and we can celebrate this, 9,299 people. Like, it's just miraculous. And that's God's work, it's God's work. And even last weekend, I'm so expectant for what God wants to do this year. Just last weekend, 175 people last weekend gave their life to Jesus and were baptized. We can celebrate that too. We're thankful for what God's doing. And if that was you, we're thankful you are here. Well, if you've got your Genesis books, and I hope you bring these with you, I really want you to take notes and just follow along. Page 28 is where you can.

and take notes on today's message. And if you want to take your very first note, here it is. The word Genesis means beginning. It just simply means beginning. And the whole entire book of Genesis is one new beginning after another. And I just wonder if there's someone here today that you need a new beginning in 2026. Like you need a fresh start. You need a reboot. I don't know if you're like me, but when I was working in the corporate world, I was working at Intel, my computer would break on occasion, right? And so you take your computer to IT, right? And it's kind of comical. I used to get frustrated. What does every single IT person tell you to do when you bring a broken computer to them? Did you restart it? I always wanted to look at them and go, I don't know, did you restart yours? You know, it's like, you don't say that because they're your best friend at that point. But what's funny is the number of times just simply restarting a computer fixes the issue. It's like, that's why they tell you. Have you ever had an issue so big though that a restart wouldn't do it? It's like when I went to the Apple store two years ago

with my iPhone, it was so like acting up and they restarted it, restarted it, looked at it. And they finally said, we got to wipe the whole entire phone. We have to start completely over. Here's what I said. No, no. I mean, I was like heartbroken. They're like, it won't get fixed if we don't completely wipe it clean. And why didn't I want to do that? The same exact reason you oftentimes don't want a total restart in your life. You have too much familiarity. You have too many things like set in place that even though they're not working, you still want to do them. Like it's like, you don't want to change the predictability you have. You have to step into the unknown. We hate the unknown sometimes. So here's what happens. If you're taking notes again, we often stay in familiar misery rather than risk unfamiliar hope. This is why people, by the way, stay in toxic jobs. This is why heartbreaking to me, people stay in abusive relationships. It's familiar. It's so unknown what's on the other side of that.

It's why people have not good friendships and they won't change them to something different. It's why people stay in destructive habits. Why? Because for some of you, listen, the devil you know you feel like is safer than the life you don't. And man, I just believe with everything inside of me, I've been praying over this message so much that God has someone here today because you need the resolve to start over, do something totally different. Now, every single year at CCV, I pick one word that just is here to direct our church and our staff. Now, I'm gonna meet with our staff in a couple of weeks. I'm gonna roll the whole entire thing out to them and how it applies to us. But can I give you a little sneak peek today? Our word of the year? Our word of the year is resolve. Resolve, here's what resolve means. A firm determination to do something and follow through with it. And man, does someone need resolve here today to make a change and then follow through with it? Today, we come to a passage of Scripture in our Genesis series. We come to Genesis chapters six through nine. That's what I'm gonna cover today.

If you've been with us in the series, we covered chapter one and two, week one. That's creation. Chapter three, we covered last week where we watched sin come into the world for the very first time. And then we saw the promise of Jesus right there. And then believe it or not, it only takes a couple minutes to read from chapter three to get to chapter six, but about 1,000 years in history have passed. When you read the genealogies, about 1,000 years between chapters three and chapter six. And what's happened is the sin introduced through Adam and Eve has now hit a point in the world to proportions that would be hard for us to understand. So we're gonna pick up the story, Genesis chapter six, starting in verse five. It says this, God saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil. Evil, evil, evil from morning to night. I love how the message translation puts that. It's evil. So God does something that's hard to imagine. Remember, this is 1,000 years of God really trying to get people's attention. God was sorry that he'd made the human race in the first place. It broke his heart. And God said, I'll get rid of my ruined creation.

I'm gonna make a clean sweep. Now, why had humanity become so evil at this point in history? Theologians have two different views of why it got so bad. If you've ever heard the word Nephilim or seen the beginning of chapter six, there's some tough passages there. We're not gonna go into, I don't have time to explain it here, but we have filmed an explanation that is gonna be shown, is available in your small groups this week, which is why you always should be in a small group. And that'll explain it. But no matter which view you have of why the world had become so evil, what you need to understand is it broke God's heart. And so God is gonna do a restart, but verse eight says this, watch this. But Noah was different. God liked what he saw in Noah. I kind of wish my name was Noah instead of Ashley. You know, it's like God liked what he saw in Noah. In the NIV, it says, Noah found favor in God's eyes. The word favor here is the Hebrew word that's translated grace. It's the first time in all of scripture we see the word grace appear. And what God does in the next three chapters, Genesis six through nine, is he takes one man, one man, Noah and his family,

and he uses them to completely start and begin again. And I think God has someone here today to learn from the life of Noah. What would it look like for God to use your life to make such a drastic change that it completely changes the life and legacy that you bring on this earth? God can do that. In fact, Martin Luther put it this way, to progress is always to begin again. Some of you want so much progress in 2026, and what it's gonna take is to begin again to actually start over. So what I wanna do today, and again, there's some challenging theological things in the flood account. Some of us, we don't understand how God could do something like that. There's that level of judgment, and we have to trust God and his plan and his goodness, and you're gonna see at the end of the message today that God brings so much grace that's even available to us today. But I wanna look at the life of Noah, and I wanna show you three things required if you wanna start over or begin again. Number one, here's what's required. It will require faith, even when it seems crazy. Why did God choose Noah above everyone else on earth at the time?

Well, let's look at it. Genesis chapter six, verse nine, it says, Noah was a righteous man. He was blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Now, you see the word righteous and blameless, and we think, oh, great. Does that mean I have to be perfect for God to start over with me and my life and the messes I've created? Was Noah perfect? You're gonna see at the end of chapter nine, if you read the whole entire story, and I encourage you to read all three chapters, at the end of chapter nine, Noah is drunk and naked in his tent. Some of you are like, that sounds like my spring break a few years ago, y'all. Maybe it was. Noah wasn't perfect. That's not what made him righteous. What makes you righteous? Let's go back to last week. What makes you righteous is when you're covered by the blood of Jesus, when God covers your sin. No one's perfect, and thank goodness, because we'd all be hosts, me included. So Noah was chosen because of his faithfulness. In fact, the writer of Hebrews clarifies it in Hebrews chapter 11, verse seven.

It says, by faith, by faith, by faith, Noah, when warned about things not seen, yet seen, in holy fear, he built an ark to save his family. What made Noah different? It was faith, even when it seemed crazy. It's you deciding, I'm gonna have faith, even when I can't see it, when I can't see the outcome, when it doesn't make total sense to me what God's asking me to do. I wrote it this way. Faith is belief that shows up in behavior. Where do some of you today, let me ask you, where do you need to have faith show up in your behavior because it's not right now? And let me give you a hint where that would be for you. It's the area of your life that's not going well right now. Whatever area of your life that's not going well is typically an indication that you're lacking faith. God's not moving in a way because you're not having behavior that shows your faith. Can I just speak to a couple people today? I wanna speak to a woman here right now. I just feel called to do it. There's a woman here right now, and your greatest frustration in your dating life, because you're not married, is in your dating life, you can't find a good man. And they never stick around. And yet, here's what you would maybe admit if you were honest.

When you date, it doesn't take long before you give your body away to somebody. Even though God said, don't do that, wait, you think in your mind, you can't see it, you can't see that there would ever be a man that would respect those kind of boundaries. It seems outdated. You look at me and you're like, do you even know how it works nowadays? Like, no man would do that. Look at me. The right man will. Amen? The right man will. And men, men, you look at me. You should honor boundaries in a dating relationship. But ladies, look at me. If he won't honor your boundaries now, what makes you think he'll ever honor your boundaries when you're married? So what does it take? Starting over starts with faith. I can't see it, but I gotta trust it because that's what God says. And when you step out in faith, God moves. There's someone else here today, and I'll just speak to you. Your greatest anxiety, like the thing that keeps you up at night is your finances. It is.

And some of you, you have more money than you ever thought you'd ever have. And you don't know why it still makes you so anxious. Let me tell you why. It's because you lack faith in the area of your finances. Let me just say it like it is. When you get paid, you don't put God first with your finances. You don't. Even though all throughout Scripture, God says, I want you to put me first in this area. First, first, first, because I can't bless any area of your life that I'm not first in. And you just justify it. You're like, well, I don't need to. I mean, God doesn't mean, the church just wants my, I mean, you just have all these justifications, or it doesn't make sense to you, and you think, maybe one day I will. I'm just telling you, you will never have peace in your finances until you put God first. But it requires faith. Of course it requires faith. Every area requires faith. Hebrews 11, verse six says, and it is impossible to please God without faith. So of course you're gonna have to take a step out there, and it's gonna feel nerve-wracking and nervous. And if it's that financially, I'm just gonna challenge someone,

you take the step today. Stop delaying. Let God bring you peace. But faith is belief that shows up in behavior, even when it seems crazy. What did God ask Noah to do that seemed, I mean, cray-cray? Crazy. He didn't say, just a flood's coming, and I want you to build a boat. He's like, I'm gonna make, it's an ark. And he gets the exact dimensions. Can I show you the dimensions of the, I mean, you go read this in scripture, the exact dimensions of the ark. It was the width of two school buses, like side by side. It's the height of three giraffes stacked high. That's how high it was. And it's the length of about one and a half football fields. You're like, what kind of football field? Well, the Cardinals football field, of course. So it's like, but it's one and a half lengths. That's how big it was. Now, some people will say to me, do you really believe in that ark? Do you believe in the flood? Absolutely I do. Jesus himself mentions the flood and Noah. That's enough for me if Jesus said it.

But even if you're not a follower of Jesus, did you know every single civilization in history almost has mentioned a flood account? That should show us it happened right there. And some people say, well, how did he fit all the animals on the ark? Like, how'd that even happen? Well, look at the capacity. And we have a gift today in America. Do you know right now in Kentucky, you can visit what's called the Ark Experience. I've taken my kids there. I'd really challenge you to mark this out on a vacation sometime. Go look at this. It's a life-size replica built by Answers in Genesis of the ark. You can go inside and tour. And they have, with scientific accuracy, show you exactly how all the animals got on the ark, exactly how it worked. It's amazing. And some people say this, how'd they get the dinosaurs on then? Remember, this is a thousand years after like Genesis chapter three. So if the dinosaurs were still here, I'll tell you exactly how he would have done it. He could have taken babies, or he could have taken eggs. The greatest challenging question to me

about the animals on the ark, how on earth did they coax those cats to get on there? And literally only God knows, only God knows. In fact, some theologians think it was a mistake to let them on. I don't believe that. I believe God loves all animals. See, I'm growing in my faith, right? Faith, the most remarkable thing to me with Noah and his faith is that, did you know, almost all scholars agree, it took about 120 years for him to build the ark. Now think about this, this isn't a day of faith. This isn't a month of faith. This isn't a year of faith. This is faith, not perfection, but faith that can go over a lifetime. I want that kind of faith. I want to have a faith that, man, I have faith even when it seems crazy. God, I'm going to follow you. It's a second requirement from Noah's life. We see this. It will require obedience even when there's no applause. No applause. Nobody clapping, saying, woo. I mean, think about the ridicule Noah took. I mean, building an ark over 120 years, could you imagine after year one?

Most scholars believe this. I believe this. There'd never been a flood on earth at this time. Noah lives in the mountains, and he's about 100 miles plus away from any body of water, like the ocean. I mean, I don't know what people are thinking. Like, no, you're going to build an ark? You're going to build an F-150 to haul it to the ocean? Like, what are you going to do, you know? I mean, I can just picture his kids who were helping him build the ark. Like, year 50, they're probably getting together, going, guys, we're going to have to take dad to get tested for dementia. This is not good. Like, nobody's applauding. You understand, no one's applauding Noah. And this is so powerful, Genesis 6.22, but Noah did everything just as God commanded him. He didn't need the applause. If you need to start over in some area of life, I want to tell you, it's going to require obedience when nobody else is clapping. No one's even giving you a golf clap. Let me take you back to your baptism, for those of you that are baptized. When you got baptized, you know what happens? Woo! Everybody's going nuts.

And then some of you walked into jobs the next week where you got ridiculed at work for your faith, by your friends for your faith. Some of you today, let me speak to a student or a college student or even a young adult here today. Some of you, what you did is you gave your life to Jesus and you walked home and your parents ridiculed you. Your parents didn't support you. The people you wanted the support from the most, they didn't understand. Or for some of you, God's called you to do something with your life that they are not applauding. I'll never forget when I decided to leave Intel. I was working there. I'd been there for many, many years and the salary was high. The stock options were good. And I was going to leave it all behind because God told me very specifically, this is just one of those clear moments in my life. I want you to go spend the rest of your life serving the local church as a pastor. And I was just going to be obedient. I remember sitting around a table with my parents to tell them for the very first time. And it's a vivid memory because we were having spaghetti. It was kind of like our family meal spaghetti. And I kind of piped up and I told my parents exactly what God had asked me to do. I'll never forget my dad.

He just blurted out, why on earth would you do that? My dad's even a follower of Jesus. He just, he had a moment where he's just like it, it made no sense to him, no applause. And at times that could have really bothered me in my life, but I was at a point in my life where I was not living my life for the applause of my parents or anybody else. I was living for an audience of one. And that is what's required. If you truly want to live a life where God can use your life, even if you need a start over, candidly speaking, and I'll just say it like it is, if you need applause, Christianity is likely not for you. Do you understand what they did to our Savior, Jesus? They spit in his face. They mocked him. They put a crown of thorns on his head and laughed at him. And Jesus said, if they did it to me, you better believe they'll do it to you as well. Why are you surprised? So we have to be a people of obedience, even when nobody's clapping. Let me put it this way. Your obedience will often look foolish until it starts raining, until the rain starts falling. What has God called you to do that seems so foolish right now?

You need the rain to fall for this to even make sense at all. If you've been around CCV for more than five years, I wanna tell you, there was a moment in the history of our church, we had a moment. like this, you had a moment like this and just being a part of our church. What happened was if you go back to COVID, if you can take your mind back there, what happened in the life of churches, if you can just, I mean, sometimes we're past it so we forget how deep it was. What happened in the life of churches at the time is that for churches, a lot of churches were saying physical gatherings are probably done. Like the future is all online. So churches shifted almost like, a lot of them shifted so much of their budget. Let's just go invest in online. The physical gatherings like buildings, like those are done. And so what we decided to do as a church during that season, because we have some amazing godly elders and leaders, we decided to do the exact opposite. And many people thought it was crazy foolish. In fact, what we did over COVID, and this was a, we bet the farm on the future of what God was gonna do at the time. We went and secured five pieces of property

in online buildings that today we would not be able to afford if we didn't do it back then. And understand now, when you look back, it was a crazy risk, you guys. A crazy risk because listen, there was no rain falling. At the time, it was so dry spiritually. Like people literally were like, wanted nothing to do with God, church. So we're gonna go invest this much in the future when we don't even know if there's gonna be, what kind of rain there's gonna be. What happened right after COVID? It started to rain. Spiritually, it started to rain all around us. In fact, for the five years after COVID to right now, people have been more open spiritually than any other time in the last 50 years. God is doing a great work. He's bringing the rain. It's not us. He's bringing the rain. But do you understand what hangs in the balance if we don't build before the rain? We don't talk about this a lot, but in the last five years, CCV has been one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Now, why? Why? It's not us.

God brings the rain, but we had to have the faith to step out and build when there was no rain. Your obedience will often look foolish until the rain starts falling. Do you understand what hangs in the balance if we don't build back then? Some of you right now, you're on a campus. It's one of those five campuses that we secured back then. You're on that campus and your life has been transformed. Your whole family's going there. You're loving it. Do you understand? If we don't make that decision back then, we literally can't afford it today. Like, that's what's on the line. And I don't know what God's calling some of you to, but it's gonna require a level of obedience when you're getting no applause. What happened to Noah? Noah spent years having to have disobedience. And then what happened? Watch this. Bam, it just happened. Genesis chapter seven, verse 12. And the rain fell on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. It started to rain. And then it says, on that very day, Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Roast Beef. Just making sure you're with me.

Making sure you're with me here, okay? It's Shem, Ham, and Japheth, together with his wife and wives and his three sons, they entered the ark. And what people laughed at saved Noah. What people didn't applaud, God used to change history. And this is one of my favorite parts of the whole entire story, Genesis 7, 16. Then God shut the door behind them. When they got in the ark, Noah didn't shut the door, God shut the door, which picture this. What God is telling us is that when you step out in obedience, I will seal and protect your life. When you live in faith, I'll do that. He sealed the door. And then Noah and his family, read the whole entire story, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, but he spends just over a year on the ark. And then the floods recede, he gets off. And what is the sign that God gave us of his faithfulness to this day? What's the sign? It's the rainbow. I think it's so interesting. Hang with me for a second. You don't need to applaud this, okay? I think it's so interesting that the rainbow has been hijacked by our culture, completely hijacked. In fact, think about this. The rainbow today is a symbol for many people

that you can live however you want, do whatever you want sexually. God doesn't care. You don't need to. be obedient to his word anymore. That's the symbol. In fact, what's so crazy about that is the first time the rainbow was given in scripture, it's because one man decided to be obedient to God and scripture and not live like everyone else around him in culture sexually. That was going crazy. We need to recapture the meaning of the rainbow. Like we need to recapture it, not in a crazy way, not in like a militant way. We just need in love to recapture the meaning because the rainbow, what does it mean? Well, let me tell you, the third requirement we see in the life of Noah is it will require remembering God's faithfulness even when we fail. When God gave the rainbow, it was a promise. Watch this, not to Noah and his family only, the rainbow's a promise to every single one of us to this day. Watch it clearly. Genesis chapter nine, verse 16. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and, say it out loud,

and all, all living creatures, that's us today. The rainbow is a covenant for us, not just Noah and his family. Genesis chapter nine is the first time in all of scripture the word covenant appears. I already showed you Genesis chapter six is the first time grace appears. So what's God doing? He's making a covenant of grace, not just with Noah, but with us. And it all points to Jesus. I want you to see, as we go through this Genesis series, I wanna pull out Jesus so you can see Jesus is from front of the book to the end of the book. It's always about Jesus. And I'm gonna show you something about the rainbow today many of you have never seen before, and I hope you never look at the rainbow the same again. Watch this. When God makes a covenant to never flood the earth with water again, he uses the rainbow to symbolize that. Now watch this. The word rainbow is the Hebrew word kaset, which simply means bow. 74 times this exact word is used throughout the Old Testament every single time. Almost every single time except for here, it's just translated as bow, as in bow as in a bow and arrow,

as in used in a war or hunting. Exactly like that, exactly like that bow. That's what it's used. Now, here, the reason it's called rainbow, it's still a bow, it just shows up in the sky after it rains. Watch this. Here's a rainbow, it's still a bow. Do you see it? It's still a bow. It's a bow. Now, what I laugh at sometimes is sometimes I'll meet people and be like, I can't step inside the walls of a church, man. I'll get struck by lightning. Like God's up in heaven going pew, pew, pew. Don't you dare step in there. You will never look at the rainbow the same again. Watch this. If it's a bow, and it is, that is exactly what the word means, which way is the bow pointed? It's pointed up towards heaven, which means all the arrows of judgment that you think God is trying to bring in your life, it's not pointed to earth. It is pointed at his son, Jesus, in heaven. If you will, now, you gotta rely on Jesus. You gotta give your life to Jesus, and when you do that,

all the judgment that you deserve because of your sin, it's pointed towards Jesus. You will never look at the rainbow the same again. That's a promise of God's faithfulness if we will live for Jesus. But think about this. The rainbow is also this symbol that God gave us that he will never destroy the earth again by water. Very specifically by water. Let me just show you the verse. Genesis chapter nine, verse 15. Never again, this is the promise of the rainbow, never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Which is a beautiful picture because watch how it points to Jesus. Water, in this instance, symbolized death. From here on, because of the rainbow, what does water symbolize in our life today? Life. Not just life. Watch this, watch this, watch this. It all points to Jesus. First Peter chapter three, verse 20. This is the New Testament. We're going back and talking about Noah. So God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it, only a few people, eight in all,

were saved through what? Water. God saved Noah. He put him on a boat. It's his grace. He saved him through water. How are we saved today? And we'll bury the next verse, verse 21. And this water symbolizes, it's baptism. This is so, I don't know if anybody, I just get so giddy at this. I'm like, that's so cool. This water symbolizes baptism and now saves you also, not the removal of dirt from your body, but the pledge of a clear conscious towards God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus. It's his grace. So when we're baptized today, it symbolizes the saving work of Jesus. It's water. Do you see the picture of Jesus? Like, do you see it? It's everywhere when you look, it's everywhere. But someone today, if you need a start over in life, it does start with baptism. It starts with giving your life to Jesus. And some of you need to take that step like we talked about last weekend. But for others of you, you have taken the step of baptism, but you still need to begin again

because life has gotten messy. You've turned away from Jesus and being obedient in some area of your life. And God's calling you to start over again, to go progress is always going back to the beginning. God, what do you want me to do? And how do we begin again? Let's look at the life of Noah again. This is what we do. It takes faith, even when it seems crazy. And God's gonna call someone to take a step of faith today. And it seems crazy. It's gonna take obedience when nobody's applauding. And it's gonna take remembering God's faithfulness, even when you fail. Someone here today, you walked in thinking your life was over because of your failures. Your life isn't over. The bow is pointing towards heaven, not towards you. And if you're not dead, you're not done. Now look at those three things again. You can't do any of these three things on your own. On your own. Sure, you need Jesus. Do you understand, you can't do any of those things if you don't have the right community of people around you. You don't have the right friends and community. I've said it this way before, it's impossible to live the right life with the wrong friends.

And some of you do not have a real godly community around you. You just don't, just very honestly. And that is why at CCV, we are constantly talking to you about CCV groups. What's a CCV group? It's a gathering of about 10 to 15 people that meets kind of outside of what we're doing right now, the weekend service, sometime during the week, and they gather together to support each other, to pray for each other, to be there for each other. Some of you don't need another sermon. You need people that won't let you down. You need to be in a CCV group. Now, we have 20,000 people at CCV in a CCV group. Do you know that? Like, that's cool. In fact, if you're in a group right now, if you're in a CCV group, I want you to raise your hand. Just raise your hand, raise it high. Look around the room. For those of you that don't have your hand raised, this isn't shame you. This is just to tell you it's time. And so we're doing something pretty drastic today. We're trying to remove every barrier to you getting in a group. That's why we have, do you know we have groups that meet in the morning, afternoon, evenings, every day of the week.

We have groups for men, women, young adults, seniors, married, single, I mean, you name it. They're everywhere. And so we're just trying to remove every barrier. But today, we're gonna do something a little different. We're gonna end the service about 10 minutes early. Did I hear an amen over here? Is that right? Now, when we end the service in just a moment, the service isn't done. You don't leave and go get your kids. When we end the service, we're ending the service early so you can go out and you're gonna hear how you can go to an area on your campus and talk to a coach, find out about a small group near you and for you. We have a small group near you and for you, near you and for you. And so we want you today, if you're not in a small group, to walk to that area, sign up, show up, and watch God begin transforming your life. So to do that, I wanna invite your campus host right now to tell you on your campus how you can do that. Can we welcome our amazing campus host to the stage right now? It's Micah. Amen. Well, hopefully, you enjoyed that message. And here's what you need to hear, is that there are people that you need in our groups.

There's also the flip side of that. There's people that need you. Our community groups is where we do life. And if that's you, you're looking to join a group or someone else. We have a space reserved for you right outside. As you head outside of the auditorium doors to your left of our Next Step Center, we have coaches that are out in the community, leading groups that are there to answer all of your questions, to help you get connected, championing Next Steps, or maybe you just need a community. surround you in prayer. Maybe you're in one of our additional seating spaces at one of our other campuses, and you want to know where to go. It's said to our Next Step Center, we have some coaches and some pastors there that will guide you. If you're tuning in online, just text the word groups in the chat, and one of our pastors will be there to connect with you. Our hope and prayer is that as you leave here today, if you're not in a group, that you will leave here in a group, or at least have all the answers to your questions when it comes to joining a group. Let me pray for us. Father, we just thank you so much for who you are.

We thank you for Jesus. Father, we just ask that you just continue to search us, to search us and pull out the boldness and the obedience to lead in faith, to follow you, because Father, you are a God that changes lives. Father, we love you. We pray this in Jesus' mighty name, amen. TCV, have a great week. We'll see you back here next week as we continue in Genesis. Amen.