Noah saw the rains fall and fall. Then for months the waters covered all land. All of our lives have seen floods — troubles and difficulties of different kinds. We have to hold fast to Him, our living hope. See the olive branch of peace with God. (Genesis 8)

Speaker(s): John Love
Sermon 12969
Date: 2025-08-03
Time: Sun 11:00 am

 

P. Love –

Praise the Lord! Beautiful song. Amen. Let’s have a prayer together (Prayer). If you could open your Bible with
me to Genesis the 8 th chapter. The book of Genesis. And some thoughts this morning on the
subject of hope. How much that is a part of our lives.

Probably you are here this morning and probably you’re thinking I hope this guy tells me
something that can bless me. I hope there is a good message, right? What are some of the
other things we hope for? I remember when I was younger playing hockey, every time I would
go out on the ice, I would hope to score a hattrick. A hattrick is like you score three goals in a
game. Now, I still have hope but my hope is changed. I hope now I can go up the ice and not fall
down! So, my hope has graduated a little bit.

But there is so much in our lives that we hope for. We hope for our children and that they will
walk with God and understand how important it is to trust him with their lives, their future. We
hope that instead of getting all those bills in the mailbox, maybe we’ll get a check once in a
while. Unexpectedly, right?

I think I might have shared this with you before but I had an aunt that passed away less than a
couple years ago, and, you know, I got this letter in the mail from a lawyer. The lawyer said your
aunt has passed away and she designated in her will that you would guess this, what I thought,
was a very substantial amount of money. And I was like, oh my gosh! I didn’t think that she
thought of me that way. I didn’t think she care that much about me.

And they said all you got to do is sign these papers, send them back to us, and then we will, you
know, once the process has taken place and it’s all taken care of, we’ll send you the check.
I was thinking to myself, I thought to myself, did she just pick me out of all of her nieces and
nephews, just in my family alone? Cuz I’ve got seven brothers and sisters. I made the conclusion
she clearly loved me and didn’t care for the rest of them.

I wanted so badly to call my siblings and say, do you know what Aunt so and so just did? But I
didn’t want to do that because I was afraid they weren’t getting anything. And I didn’t want to
discourage them or sound, you know, like I was her favorite.

And it was just amazing. And finally, I got another letter in the mail. And they said, we have
made a little bit of a mistake. This money has been designated to John A. Love, Sr. Not John A.
Love, Jr. So, I was like, that’s okay. Even though I had already in my mind spent it and bought
that car that I needed.

Anyhow, I was very thrilled to call my father and say, dad, you’re going to be really blessed
because, you know, fortunately for you, you’re not me. I got to tell you. I was so ecstatic.

Sometimes you just wish that that would happen. Instead of getting another bill in the mail, you
might get a check.
Hope. It’s something that is part of our lives. But hope for you and I as believers, you know
what it is? It’s so much more than just something we can imagine. Or something so much more
than just a dream. You know what it is? It’s a person. It’s Christ himself. He is our hope.
And although we do hope for so many other things in our lives, our hope and the foundation of
that hope is Christ. You know, too often in our world hope is kind of pessimistically defined by a
little boy who said this. This is how he described hope. He says, Hope is wishing for something
you know ain’t gonna happen. For a lot of people, that’s what hope is. You can wish for it, but it
ain’t gonna happen, right?

But real hope is found in the person of Jesus Christ. And you say, what does false hope look
like? Somebody once said that false hope may best be described when you realize what’s
happened four hours after you go on a diet! Does that register? Yeah, okay. That’s false hope.
Okay. You say that’s it. Going on that diet. And four hours later you realize, well, that’s not
probably going to work as you feast on a whole new batch of chocolate chip cookies.

But here in Genesis 8, you know the story. God has flooded the earth because of the
wickedness of the hearts of men. Every single imagination in their hearts and minds were evil. It
just kind of rose up in the face of God, and God did not want to do it. That was not his intention
to destroy the world, but the wickedness had grown to such an extent that there was no other
option except to provide hope in the salvation of those who would believe the message that he
was going to preach through his servant, Noah.

And we know the story. Noah’s family alone along with all of those animals were placed on that
ark. And then the rains came. Forty days of rain. And boy, we know what that’s like. Some of us
do.

Several years ago, I remember we took a group of young people to Poland, and we didn’t know
it but while we were there, they had the worst floods in their 100-year history. And I mean
every day, every day, those rains came and they didn’t stop. We watched the rivers rise as we
were in this small town on the countryside of Poland.

And then we were in a town and not far from where we were staying, up the road maybe a mile
or two miles, there was a dam. And every day because these rains never stopped. Every day,
the dam would rise more and more, so finally we took a trip up there. A group of us went up to
investigate it because we started to get a little concerned.

And we went up there and the media was up there and they were looking at the dam and one
of the experts said, you know, this dam would have to rise 18 more meters for there to be any
real danger for the community. And we were like, okay. Thank God.

So, again, another day of rain. Another night of rain. Then we back up there the next day and
they sounded the alarm. The dam has raised. The water has raised 15 meters. And now, they
are beginning to talk about evacuation. And I mean it was frightening.

And I got all, I’m responsible for all these young people. I remember meeting with them and
saying, listen. This is what we’re going to do. You don’t have to take your bags and all your
luggage, but just take whatever clothes you need. Make sure you have your passports and
we’re just gonna head up to the highest point where we were. It was really scary.

We called home. We talked to P. Stevens at the time. And I was hoping he was going to give us
a word from God. I explained to him over the phone the situation. And I’ll never forget what he
said. Get the hell out of there! And I said, that’s what I want to hear, pastor! That’s what I want
to hear. And we were prepared to do that.

So, again. All the plan was in place and of course the next morning, we woke up and the clouds
gave way to the sun and the rain stopped. We survived only to go back to the city where we
were staying at in Poland for this camp, and we realized we witnessed as we got on that bus
and headed back, all the ravages of the flood. It was unbelievable. Worst flood in a hundred
years. It was incredible.

Well, Noah. He could identify with that, right? And the flood happens, forty days and forty
nights, and then they are spending months on this ark. And all you can see – imagine being on
that ark. All you can see is water. Clouds reflect the water, right? The sun sets over the water
each and every day. They are on the ark now for months. The boat is surrounded by it. It had to
be incredible. For months they are floating on the waters that covered the earth. And they have
to eat the same food every day. Smell the same smells every day. Look at the same faces every
day.

I can imagine if there’s only eight of them on the ark that they could maybe get on each other’s
nerves from time to time. You got to believe that some of those eight people started talking to
the animals! Just go up to a camel and say, these people are driving me crazy. I want to spend a
few moments with you.

Anyhow, finally, after several months, the boat hits a bump. They stop floating. Noah sticks his
head out the hatch and his wife says, What do you see? Water. Everywhere. Water. And then
finally, again, more time elapses. He decides he’s going to send out a raven. Like on a scouting mission. The raven perhaps – and of course, it was a Baltimore raven. It had to be! And he
sends out the raven, hopefully bringing back some good news. But the raven never returned.
Then he decides some time later, send out a dove. But that dove, the first dove he sent out,
came back cold, tired. No place was found to rest for that dove. He tries again. He sends the
dove out and he waits. And again, all he can see as far as the eye can imagine is water, water,
water.

Now, why do I share this with us this morning? Because sometimes in our lives, we know the
feeling. We know what it’s like to have a situation similar to that of Noah, albeit dramatically
different. But in one sense, we have been where Noah has been.

How so? With the floods. Flooded. Maybe by the sorrow of losing a loved one. Flooded.
Because of the stress that we feel every day when we have to go to work or go to the office.
Flooded by the pain and the suffering that we sometimes or in some cases some people feel all
the time in their physical bodies. We’ve all been at the place where the flood waters don’t
seem to do anything except keep rising.

And then what happens? Just like it must have been on the ark, every single day when the sun
would come up and then the sun would set, some people live their lives and the sun just seems
to keep setting on their hopes. And that’s exactly what we need. We need hope.

You’ve read the stories. I’ve read the stories. We’ve heard the stories of those who have been
prisoners of war or maybe incarcerated in a prisoner of war camp lets say in the second World
War in Auschwitz or some of these Nazi prison camps.

The only thing. They keep saying the same thing. I read this story of one of the first American
pilots shot down during the Vietnam conflict. And he was in prison. I think it was for six years.
Six years. It said every day he was tortured. Every day they wanted him to sign papers to
denounce his country. But he wouldn’t do it. And they asked when he was finally released after
six years of that imprisonment, they said how? How did you survive? He said, there is only one
answer. I didn’t lose hope. I didn’t lose hope. I saw others around me lose hope and in many
cases, they just crawled up in their cells and it was not long before they just died.

Every day, we have to live with hope, and thank God, we do live with hope because our hope is
found in Christ himself. Not necessarily that he will change our circumstances. Although
honestly, we sometimes do hope that he will. But even if he doesn’t, it doesn’t shatter our
hope. it doesn’t shake our hope because our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and
his righteousness. We know that. But we need hope.

And praise God that’s exactly what Noah got. Ge. 8:11 says when the dove the second time
returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf. A piece of a
tree. But that leaf was so much more than just foliage. It was a promise. It brought more than a
piece of a tree back. It brought hope. That’s what that was for Noah.

There is hope that we will someday leave this ark. That we’ll be back on dry land. That our lives
will change. And sometimes we say the same thing. We hope that our children will come
around and begin to follow God perhaps like they once did when they were young. We hope
that the pain and the suffering in our bodies will some day be dismissed and it will be gone and
we’ll be able to praise God and worship him and lift our hands because of what he’s done.

We just don’t lose hope. There’s something about the new nature that God has given us that is
seemingly wired with hope. It’s part of our DNA. We never lose it and we cannot afford to lose
it. Hope for us is like the olive leaf was for Noah. Evidence of dry land for him after a flood.
What do olive trees look like or olive branches look like? You know, maybe the olive branch is
when the doctor says I have such great news for you. It looks like the cancer is in remission. Or
somebody comes to you after you prayed long and hard that God would do something about
your finances, and they come to you and they say, unlike my aunt, I can help with your finances.
Maybe.

Or somebody just simply approaches you and says I know that this is overwhelming. I know this
is so difficult for you to go through, but we are with you and we will get you through this
together. It’s like God just keeps reminding us that yes you may be in it at the moment that it’s
going to pass.

I love that. Some one asked me once, What is your favorite verse in the Bible? Honestly, it’s this
verse. And you find it everywhere, especially in the New Testament. It’s a phrase that just goes
like this, “and it came to pass.” That’s all it says. And it just sounds like Jesus is moving on with
his disciples and they are going in this town and they are moving in this direction or maybe the
previous story has come to a conclusion. And it says, “and it came to pass.”

But the good news behind that verse is that it says, “and it came to pass.” It didn’t come to
stay. It didn’t come to stay. The heartache will not stay forever because we have hope in the
one that can bring that change that we long for in our hearts.

We love olive leaves and we love the people who bring them. I think that’s why so many people
love Jesus. How about the woman caught in the act of adultery. I mean there she stands. I
mean, without even a jury and a judge, you might as well just declare her guilty. She has been
dragged from her bed of sin and she has nothing but judgment to look forward to.

For Noah, he sees nothing but water. For that woman in John’s Gospel chapter 8, she sees
nothing but anger in the faces of those who would have her stoned to death. She has no hope.
And what does Jesus do? He does for her what he does for us. He offers her an olive leaf. He
gives her hope. And in her shame flooded world, she gets hope.

God does the same thing for us. He knows that the floods of this life can potentially overwhelm
us. We can begin to see day after day turn into week after week and month after month and
even year after year and we start to think, Is there every going to be an olive branch for me? Is
there ever going to be anything called hope in my life?

Jesus did the same thing for Martha and Mary after their brother Lazarus died in John’s Gospel
chapter 11. He brought an olive leaf. He said I am the resurrection and the life. They said we
know that someday, my brother, he will be raised again from the dead. Jesus said, no. I’m
telling you right now. I’m the resurrection and the life. That’s hope in the midst of despair.
It’s like Jesus is God’s dove and he brings that kind of hope and gives out the leaves of hope to
all of us. And I hope that somehow this morning that that’s what we might take away from
being together as the Body of Christ this service. That we would see God maybe just light a new
or kindle a new fire in the hope of our hearts.

Because remember something about God. He says this through the prophet Isaiah. A bruised
reed he will not break. A smoking flax he will not quench. That’s God’s way of saying when it
looks hopeless, you turn to me. You start hoping against hope and watch what I can do.
There is a book, it was entitled, “The Grand Essentials.” A man named Ben Patterson wrote the
book. This is a true story. He tells of an S4 submarine that sank off the coast of Massachusetts.
The entire crew was trapped in this submarine at the bottom of the ocean. Every effort was
made to rescue the sailors but every effort failed.

Near the end of the ordeal, a deep sea diver heard tapping on the steel wall of the sunken sub.
And as he placed his helmet against the vessel, he was amazed. He heard a sailor tap out a
question in Morse Code. Do you know what the question was? Is there any hope? Is there any
hope?

Do you know that there’s so many people flooded because of guilt that they’ve picked up in this
world and they are asking the same question. There can even be people here this morning that
are asking the same question. Is there any hope? What’s our answer to those people? What’s
God’s answer to those people? There is hope. Yes. That hope is found in a person. It’s Christ
himself.

To the Noah’s of this world and to all those who are looking, just searching for a glimpse of
hope. Just a sliver of hope. God says, yes. Sometimes we think like Noah. We think our ark is
too isolated. I’m too far away from God. It’s been too long since I have even thought about his
presence or thought about him at all. But God says your flood is not too great. I can give you an
olive branch.

Your toughest challenge – remember, it’s not even a challenge for God. Because what
challenges us is nothing for God. With men, some things seem and are in their conclusion,
impossible. But with God, what? Nothing is impossible. He can turn around the worst case
scenario.

He can take the most tragic situation that we’ve experienced in our lives and somehow, he will
find a way to give us an olive branch. Find a way to get us through. Find a way to renew our
hope deep in our hearts. Cuz our God is never confounded. He’s never confused. He’s never
discouraged. He never has to take time to charge his cell phone. He never has to take a nap.
He’s always ready to bring hope into our lives.

And I wonder. I wonder sometimes, what do you supposed Noah did with that olive branch?
That leaf. What do you think he did. Listen. If he had pockets, I guarantee he put it in his pocket.
He didn’t throw it away. He didn’t say, ah, what’s this? Great. A branch. How does that help us?
We’re looking for dry ground. We’re looking for a new beginning. We’re looking to start our
lives all over again. No, he said this is hope. I can imagine him running around the ark and saying to everyone, all eight people, look at what I have. Look at what this is. They could have looked at him like he was half mad. But he said this
is hope. This means that God can turn things around. This means that a brighter day is coming.

This means that we will leave this ark someday and the floods will not ultimately overwhelm us.
You know, there’s something interesting that Paul the Apostle wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, that amazing
chapter about love, right? Remember. In Romans 5:5, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit has
what? Shed abroad in our hearts the love of God. We don’t try to work that up. We don’t try to
gain that or earn it or love worthy lives so that God will somehow impart or shed abroad his
love in our hearts.

It says it’s the Holy Spirit’s job to pour out his love. To douse our hearts with God’s love. And
the amazing thing according to 1 Corinthians 13, one of the things that love does is that it hopes all
things. It believes all things. It endures all things. And it never fails.

You can say the same thing about hope, the hope that is in Christ. The hope that God pours into
our hearts. It does not fail. We get to live with it. Sometimes we live with that hope, and like
that American pilot who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, you could think why wouldn’t he give up his hope? Why wouldn’t he just let it go? Six years. Because he knew that that hope was
the secret to staying alive.

God’s given us an olive branch and on top of that because Noah, I think he kept it. I think he
held onto it. Who knows? Maybe someday he passed that on to a child, to a family member or
to someone else that might need it. And you and I can do the same thing. The hope that God
gives us may just be the hope that we pass on to others who need it just as desperately as we
did in our lives.

You think back. Some of us in our teenage years. I can reflect on those years and think to myself
I didn’t think I was going to get through those years. I didn’t think I was going to get through a
tough period in my life, and yet, we kept hoping, didn’t we? Just the fact that we’re hear this
morning, that means there’s hope in our hearts. I hope that God speaks to me. I hope that God
imparts something that is encouraging to me. I hope that God touches me in a new and
different way today. I hope that I’ll see people who love me, embrace me, accept me just the
same way God does. That hope is so vital, so important.

The same hope that young couples need, right. Because sometimes young couples, young
married couples, they go through tough times. The honeymoon ends. The river of romance
becomes what? The river of reality. And they wonder, are we going to make it? Tell them yes.
With Christ. You’re not just going to survive. You’re going to thrive because of his grace,
because of his mercy.

You know, even a tough marriage that’s going through some difficulties, yes. Get an olive leaf.
Keep it. Hold onto it. And after it does what it’s supposed to do for you, pass it on to someone
else who needs it as well. Encourage those that are struggling. How? With your presence. With
your words. With a promise from God. With some kind of hope.

And again, it’s not the kind of hope that young man very pessimistically described as waiting for
something that ain’t gonna happen. No, our hope is real. You say, how do we know our hope is
real? Because our hope was raised again from the dead. I don’t think it gets any more hopeful
than that.

I mean when you’re dead as you and I once were in our trespasses and sins and look at us
today. We are alive in Christ. We are the children of God. We are forgiven. We are members of
his Body. We are destined for heaven. Nothing’s going to change that. You talk about hope. You
and I were once dead. Now, we are alive in Christ. That’s amazing. That’s hope.

So, whatever you do in the days to come, pass out those olive leaves. Find guilty people and
give them the good news. Give them an olive leaf. Give them Romans 8:1. You know if you’re in
Christ, there’s no condemnation. You’ll never be charged for a single sin. Christ died for those sins. He paid the penalty for those sins already. You will not have to pay another price for sins
that have already been paid for.

Give them an olive leaf. Give them some hope. To the grief stricken, tell them that God is with
them and he’s not going to allow them to go through what they are going through alone. And
he’ll never leave them. He’ll never forsake them. Five times. Five times in Hebrews 13:5, God says
no never, never, never, never, never leave you or forsake you. It’s almost like he wanted to
hear it over and over again so that hope would continue to burn brightly in our hearts.

To those that don’t have work or they’re looking for work and they’re in financial distress and in
trouble, you know, just tell them Rom. 8:28. Give them an olive leaf. Everything is going to work
together for their good. They might look at you and say, that’s the whole point. I don’t have
work. It doesn’t matter. If you’re not working, trust me. God still is. And he’s working
everything together for your good. Give them an olive leaf.

To those who feel like they are beyond God’s grace and there are many people who think that.
God’s grace. I mean, I think I reached the bottom of the barrel. I wrote one too many checks
out on grace and guess what? The last one I wrote bounced. No! You will never reach the
bottom of the barrel of God’s grace because it is eternal. Just as eternal as he is.

So, to those that feel like I’m beyond God’s grace, well just read James 4:6. He giveth more
grace. That’s the whole reason we are in a church called Greater Grace. People say this all the
time. What church do you go to? Oh, are you greater than all other churches? No, we’re the
worst of the worst. I assemble with the chief of sinners every week we come together. And I am
the chief of sinners.
No, we are not the greatest church. We are the biggest sinners but we know this about God.
Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. The Bible is just a basket filled with olive
leaves.

Just think about it. What a difference a leaf can make. I’m telling you. I think Noah took it and
put it in his pocket and must have thought to himself, I’ll continue to use this again. And if I use
it right up to the end of my life, I’ll be sure to pass it on to someone else who needs it.
Do we need those olive leaves? You bet you we do. And do others need them as well? Yes. So,
when you get one, you hold onto it because you’ll find plenty of people who will need them as
well. Amen.

So, like our good friend the Reverend Jesse Jackson always used to say, “Keep hope alive.” You
say, what else did he say? I have no idea. But all I know is that every time you heard him speak
publicly before he passed away, he would always say, Keep hope alive.

I met him once in South Carolina during a chaplain’s conference for the NBA, and I went up to
him and I said I got to tell you something. There’s one thing that you keep saying over and over
and over again and I absolutely love it. He said, what’s that? Keep hope alive. He said to me, Are
you? Absolutely. Absolutely. Keep hope alive. Take the olive leaf that God has for you. Keep it.
Use it as many times as you need it and then when you can, pass it on to somebody else.

And I’m just going to close with this because I spoke with P. Pete yesterday. I think we have
about 14 or 15 young people and guess what they are doing? They’re hoping to go to camp.
They don’t have the resources but they’re hoping. I like that. I have a strange feeling that if
they’re hoping, and their hope is in Christ, we’ll see them at camp. Amen. All right. Let’s pray.
(Prayer)

 

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