Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Well, good morning, Church.
[00:00:04] Happy Mother's Day. Can we make some noise for the moms?
[00:00:11] We love you. We hope you feel special and treasured and honored today.
[00:00:17] We're so grateful for you. I'm grateful I have a great mom and grateful for my wife, Allie. She's an amazing mom. And I know this room is filled with awesome, awesome mom. So we love you today. Yep. Amran, point them out. Yeah.
[00:00:33] And we're so grateful to celebrate that with you today. And my name's Chet. If we haven't had the chance to meet, if you're a guest with us. Love to meet you, but glad you're here today. And, Church, I have some good news to share with you this morning.
[00:00:47] Can you receive that?
[00:00:49] You don't want bad news. Okay.
[00:00:52] So I asked you last week to just be praying diligently on a couple things with our building process, and I want to give you some updates. So our appraisal came in. I asked you to pray that it would be 4.6 million. It came in at 6.1 million.
[00:01:10] So huge answer to prayer. Very thankful for that. So thank you for your diligent prayer. The second thing we were praying about is our zoning meeting with Eaton Township. So we had that on Wednesday, and it went well.
[00:01:27] So basically what we expected was they would then set a second meeting, which they did, to kind of do this final review and approval, and that will be May 20th.
[00:01:39] So, again, that's kind of what was expected. That went well. Everything.
[00:01:44] It doesn't seem like there are any issues that should get in the way, so. So here's what I want to ask you to pray for is just to pray for this last run here for just nothing to hold us up, nothing unexpected to come, but just all of this to go from here to breaking ground. Very smooth. Okay.
[00:02:07] So be praying diligently for that. This is, as teaching said, our week of prayer. So it is the perfect time for us as a church to seek God's help and blessing, because we can't do any of this without him. And part of this journey is us as a church, our faith growing as we see God come through us on every phase of this journey which he has. Church. So my hope is that sometime around May 25, we could actually break. Great.
[00:02:37] Right? So pray for that.
[00:02:39] So May 25, again, believe in specific prayers. Pray for that. Pray that between now and then, we'd be good to go. We can celebrate. We can see a bunch of stuff happening this summer and get ready for the next adventure. Sound good?
[00:02:54] Amen. All right, well, let's pray right now and be praying in your hearts this week, Father. Lord, we give you honor and praise for, for what we just talked about.
[00:03:06] Lord, you have guided us, you have provided for us, you have opened up all the doors for us as a church every step of the way. And we give you thanks, we give you glory, and we acknowledge that it is you ultimately, Lord, to your name be the glory. And Father, as we. As it feels like we're at the one yard line, Lord, would you just bless us the rest of the way, give us favor where we need it, make everything go smooth. And Lord, bless us to see this project all the way through. To your glory, Father. We pray that most importantly, through this, our faith would be built up and strengthened. And we pray you would use all of this to glorify the name of Christ the Lord. People would go down Route 10 and they would see this place and they would be drawn in and they would see the excellence of Jesus Christ.
[00:04:03] People would see what happened and they would say, man, God is real and active in this world.
[00:04:10] And their hearts would be moved.
[00:04:12] Lord, bless us, glorify your name. Thank you for the honor it is to be on this adventure with you. And we ask all this in Jesus great name.
[00:04:21] Amen.
[00:04:23] Amen. Well, church, we are continuing our study through the Book of Jonah, and we're gonna look at Jonah 3 today.
[00:04:32] And I love the Book of Jonah. This has been fun to go through it. You agree with that?
[00:04:38] Yep. Not very convincing, but I'll take what I can get. And as I was thinking about this week, my daughter Emory, my oldest, she's seven.
[00:04:47] And so she's really putting a lot of emphasis on reading and writing.
[00:04:52] And one of the things she loves to do is to practice sentences with me.
[00:04:58] So sometimes, kind of in the evening, she'll bring a pen and notepad. She'll be like, dad, can we write sentences? And basically she'll say, give me a sentence, and I'll give her a sentence, and she'll begin to write it. And it's just kind of like a fun thing that we do.
[00:05:15] And many times she'll start writing it and she'll misspell a word or something will get messed up. She'll be like, fresh start, fresh start. I need a fresh start. Like, yeah, take it. And she'll just exit out and then start again. Or she'll turn the page. And this kind of happens a lot. There's a lot of fresh starts in this process, and I'm perfectly fine with it. You know, the Amazon rainforest may not love it, but we got plenty of paper.
[00:05:46] We can do as many fresh starts as you need. And so far, there's been a lot that is needed. And I think in life, fresh starts are something we need too.
[00:06:00] We need a sense of all right, let's just begin this all again. And one of the.
[00:06:06] The painful things in life is it doesn't feel like life affords us a whole lot of fresh starts. Have you ever had that sense where you're like, oh, my gosh, if I knew everything I know now, I would have done this so different? Right? And isn't that you're like, well, I'm glad to learn that. But this is also haunting to me at the same time.
[00:06:27] And fresh starts are something we long for, something we need, something. But here's the good news, something that we see God give to us in the book of Jonah. See, what I want to show you today is that I believe God is a God of new beginnings.
[00:06:47] God is a God of fresh starts. We start our journey, and it doesn't always go well.
[00:06:54] But the good news is God's mercy can actually begin it again in a different way.
[00:07:02] We don't have the ability to do that, but God does. And we're gonna see this, I think, very powerfully in Jonah today. So we're gonna look at Jonah 3. I'm gonna read you this chapter now just to give you a quick catch up to what has happened is Jonah was this ancient prophet in Israel, and God had called him to go speak this message to the ancient city of Nineveh, which was the capital of. Of the Assyrian empire. They were powerful, they were brutal, they were cruel. And Jonah didn't like them and didn't want anything to do with them. And so God called Jonah and he said, okay, go preach to Nineveh. And Jonah says, no, I'm not doing it. And he begins to run from God and he goes the other direction. And God says, not so fast, buddy.
[00:07:55] And he eventually stops him. Last week we talked about his prayer in the belly of the fish. And Jonah finally turns a corner. And that's where we pick up in chapter three. And it says this. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, arise, Go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.
[00:08:21] So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. Three days journey and breadth. And Jonah began to go into the city going a day's journey. And he called out, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And the people of Nineveh believed God.
[00:08:43] They called for a fast and put on sackcloth. From the greatest of them to the least of them, the word reached the king of Nineveh. He arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
[00:08:58] He issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd, nor flock taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way, from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows?
[00:09:19] God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so we may not perish.
[00:09:25] When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he said he would do to them. And he did not do it.
[00:09:34] Now, there's a lot in these verses, but here's what happened. Jonah listens to God and he goes to Nineveh and he preaches a message that, you know, I think it lacks a little style, but it's effective.
[00:09:49] He says, 40 days and you'll be destroyed.
[00:09:52] And they're like, oh, my gosh, we need to turn to God.
[00:09:57] I love when a sermon doesn't go well and then God uses it. You know, Jonah, it's not the most eloquent sermon, but God uses it, and they hear it and they fast, they humble themselves. The king says, hey, guys, we're out of line. We need to change our ways. We need to purge the evil from our hearts and our hands, and we need to turn to God.
[00:10:23] And the Scriptures say, and God relented of the judgment he was gonna bring. Now, what does this section teach us?
[00:10:33] I think it teaches us a lot of things, but I want to first look at this notice. Jonah now has a second chance.
[00:10:42] The word of the Lord comes to him a second time.
[00:10:47] You know, our God is a God of second chances.
[00:10:53] And I love that he brings this second chance to Jonah. But he doesn't threaten him.
[00:11:00] He doesn't bring his word and say, all right, Jonah, don't mess it up this time.
[00:11:07] He doesn't say, jonah, all right, I'm exhausted with you.
[00:11:13] You're driving me crazy. Can you just do it right this time? There's no tone, there's no threatening. Sometimes my kids, after I tell them, and then they don't listen. My Tone tends to change. Anyone else? Parents? You know, I'm like, I will give this thing back to you again, but if you hit your brother in the face, it's over. You know, I kind of get anyone with me.
[00:11:37] Any parents that need Christ's salvation. Just lift your.
[00:11:42] And you know, you're frustrated. Your patience is gone. You're like, why do I have to keep telling you this?
[00:11:50] And how understandable would it be for God to speak that way to Jonah? Like, could any of us blame him?
[00:12:00] Like, Jonah, you could not have tried harder to run from God.
[00:12:05] Like, you could not have tried harder. And yet the word of the Lord comes to him the second time as if it's the first time.
[00:12:17] It's really no different.
[00:12:19] What does that show us? It shows us that God is a God of mercy.
[00:12:25] God is a God of second chances.
[00:12:28] And here's the truth, Church. We all need them.
[00:12:32] We all need second chances and third chances and fourth chances and fifth chances. Do I need to keep going?
[00:12:41] And sixth chances. And so we need.
[00:12:44] And what Jonah is showing us is that we have a God whose mercy allows for new beginnings and fresh starts in our lives.
[00:13:00] What a beautiful, beautiful thing.
[00:13:04] And God gives Jonah this second chance. And he says, jonah, arise and go again.
[00:13:12] Now I just want to just think about this for just a minute longer.
[00:13:17] You know, I've heard all my life, and you probably have, too, where people will say, you know, same day.
[00:13:24] You know, different day, same junk. They say it a little more colorfully than that. Usually, you know the saying different day, but within that. And many of us kind of can get into that mindset in life, and within that mindset is saying, you know, what every day brings is just problems and disappointments and frustration and that same feeling of stuckness. It doesn't bring a fresh start.
[00:13:56] And I was thinking about that and thinking about Jonah, and I'm reminded of this verse in Lamentations. It's another Old Testament book, and it says this.
[00:14:04] It says, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
[00:14:11] Church, I don't know if you know, but that is good news.
[00:14:16] Check this out. His mercies never come to an end.
[00:14:24] They didn't run out on Jonah, and they're not gonna run out on you.
[00:14:28] They are new. Get this. They are new every morning.
[00:14:35] Here's what the Scriptures say. Here's different day, new mercy. That's what we can expect from God.
[00:14:43] Different day, new mercy, new beginnings.
[00:14:50] An opportunity for a better future.
[00:14:53] What we see in Jonah is a God who is committed to that now, it's interesting because sometimes when we think about God's mercy and God's forgiveness, sometimes people think that that might make presumptuous people.
[00:15:14] But I would say if we really understand it, and if we really understand the heart and the reality of God, it doesn't actually make us presumptuous. It makes us loyal.
[00:15:28] It makes us say, you won't ever fail me or forsake me, and I will show up and serve you.
[00:15:37] One of my favorite movies is Account of Monte Cristo. Has anyone ever seen that movie? Yeah, it's a really good movie, and it's based off a very famous novel that I've never read, but I heard it's good, too.
[00:15:51] I like the movie, but the movie is about this man named Edmond Dantes. And he's wrongfully in prison. And he's sent to this incredibly remote prison where people who are kind of knowingly go in there unjustly, they're kind of more political prisoners and that kind of thing. And he makes a daring escape. And he washes up on shore, but he washes up on shore to a band of pirates that are in this dilemma. And to make a long story short, the pirates force him to fight to the death one of their crew. And he doesn't wanna do it, but he doesn't have any options, and he has to. And he wins the battle. But he doesn't kill him.
[00:16:32] Instead, he negotiates. He says, listen, let's do this a different way. And he gives mercy to that man.
[00:16:41] And in the movie, the man that gives mercy, his name is Jacobo, which is a pretty awesome name.
[00:16:47] Jacobo looks to him and he says, I will be your man forever.
[00:16:55] See, what that scene so powerfully shows is mercy creates loyalty.
[00:17:03] When we see God's mercy to us, when we recognize the chances that he gives us again and again and again, that doesn't make us take God less serious. It makes us take him more serious.
[00:17:20] And understanding his mercy to us is what builds our commitment to him.
[00:17:27] And in your life and my life, do you know the God of second chances?
[00:17:33] Or do we have the wrong picture of who he is?
[00:17:37] Do you expect his mercy to be new for you today, offered to you today, or do we expect something different? Because mercy creates loyalty? And so God gives Jonah mercy, and he calls him, and Jonah goes. Now, what's interesting about this is that, you know, scholars try to estimate where Jonah was at and where Nineveh was at and what that journey looked like, and they suspect that it was a 900 mile journey that's pretty long.
[00:18:12] That would mean that if he was going at a pretty good clip, it would take a minimum of two months to get there.
[00:18:20] And that's probably like, going faster than he did. So it probably maybe was like two, two and a half or three months to go from where he was to Nineveh. Isn't that crazy? I also read that the average American walks 900 miles a year.
[00:18:41] So. Yeah, so what we walk in a year is what Jonah had to do to get to Nineveh.
[00:18:48] And I bet, you know, there's some savages that really bring that average up. We're probably half that, 450. You know, the marathon runners really skew the average.
[00:18:59] But what I find interesting about that is that there is this theme in the scripture where God looks to people and he says, I wanna use you to reach this place and these people that are far away from me.
[00:19:20] Are you willing to go?
[00:19:22] Are you willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of what I wanna do in the world and in this moment? Cause you're gonna walk 900 miles.
[00:19:33] You gotta have a little commitment behind that. Amen.
[00:19:37] Like, you can't just. You can't do that. You know, couch potato to 900 miles. You know, like, you're gonna have to get after that.
[00:19:46] You're gonna be committed to that. And Jonah is. Because it is God's purpose and in our lives. I just wanna remind us that sometimes God's mission will always be opposed to our comfort.
[00:20:03] And we always have to pick God's mission over our comfort. You with me, church? And I think this really applies to where we're at today.
[00:20:13] We're in an uncomfortable place as a church.
[00:20:17] People are working hard every Sunday to set up, to take down by the grace of God. Laporte's letting us use some space, but we're, you know, we don't have a real comfortable setup right now. But why are we in this season?
[00:20:34] Because we believe it's part of God's mission to use us in this way and that we can't shy away from hard work and effort and discomfort. Because God's mission requires us to do hard things and to walk by faith and to stretch ourselves. You with me on this? And it's always that way. And here's what kills the church and here's what kills a healthy Christian life, is we start caring about comfort more than mission.
[00:21:08] Jonah looks at Nineveh and he says, and this is what was in Jonah's heart. I don't care about these guys.
[00:21:14] I'm not doing that exhausting journey for God to use me there. I'm gonna stay where I'm at.
[00:21:23] I'm gonna sit in my La Z boy.
[00:21:26] I'm gonna order some doordash.
[00:21:29] I'm gonna watch the office for the 50th millionth time.
[00:21:34] I just heard some people do that on occasion.
[00:21:37] And I'm gonna be comfortable where I'm at. But church, we always have to be willing to extend ourselves for the sake of God's mission, for the sake of what God wants to do in this world. And so Jonah has a good moment and he goes and he does it. He goes into Nineveh and he says, 40 days.
[00:21:59] And this place is going to the tank. 40 days and it will be overthrown. Now what we learn through history that's kind of interesting about this time period is that Nineveh had been through some pretty tough things.
[00:22:15] They had famines going on during this time. They had plagues and they had internal revolts.
[00:22:23] And so all these things were kind of happening in the background before Jonah came and shared this message. And I just find that interesting because so oftentimes God in His genius will use the circumstances of our life to prepare us for what he wants us to hear and know and receive in Him.
[00:22:51] In other words, you could think about that the soil of Nineveh's heart was prepared by some heavy rain.
[00:23:00] And in the same way, sometimes there is heavy rain in our lives.
[00:23:06] And instead of just always being fighting against it, maybe we need to say, God, what are you speaking to me through it?
[00:23:17] What are you trying to do in me that you want done?
[00:23:22] And God prepared Nineveh. And then Jonah comes in and he says, 40 days and you'll be overthrown. Now again, that's not an encouraging message.
[00:23:34] There's not a lot of inherent hope in that message. Would you agree?
[00:23:38] It's not the news that I'm sure any of them wanted or expected, but it was the news that they needed to hear.
[00:23:50] And thankfully, part of God's mercy is telling us not just what we want to hear in this life, but what we need to hear.
[00:24:02] And thankfully we have a God that will speak truth even when it's hard and show us truth that we need for the health of, of our life. You with me on this? Like, think about it this way. You would not want a doctor that says, I can't share this bad news about their scan with them. I can't tell them. Cause I don't want them to hear that.
[00:24:29] You would say, no, don't hide it from me. Tell me so then I can know how to get better. You with me on this. And the great physician of our soul will tell us what we need to hear, even if it's different from what we want to hear. But we need to be open to it. You with me?
[00:24:51] Because what we need to hear is how God leads us into new beginnings and a better future.
[00:24:59] Now, here's what's amazing about this passage. They all listen.
[00:25:05] They are radically open to this.
[00:25:08] I mean, it's hard to imagine them being any more receptive. This cruel nation, this nasty superpower, these evil people.
[00:25:20] They get this one sentence from Jonah, and they're like, all right, we're changing our ways. Like, that is some real receptivity there. Amen. That is some incredible openness.
[00:25:34] And they all start fasting. In the ancient world, they put on sackcloth. It means, like, these outward signs of humility and reception of what God was saying to them. They call for a fast. They do all these things. And basically we could summarize all of those is what they essentially do is they repent.
[00:25:55] Is they hear what God says and they agree with it.
[00:26:00] They say, all right, Lord, we receive it.
[00:26:03] And they turn towards God.
[00:26:06] See, sometimes the most important moments in our lives are the times where we humble ourselves before God.
[00:26:17] The most powerful times in our life is when we stop justifying all our dysfunction.
[00:26:26] And then we say, lord, I am sorry.
[00:26:30] You are right, and I'm turning towards you, Church. That is some of the most powerful things that can ever happen in our heart. Because every time you and I do that, we open the space for God to give us a new beginning. That's where they come from. Those moments of humility, those moments of. Of surrender, those moments of hearing from God and not fighting him, but saying, all right, I agree.
[00:26:59] I receive it. I acknowledge it. And I'm asking for you to help me to be different.
[00:27:07] Those are the moments that truly change our lives. You with me on this? And I just. I love. Just kind of the pattern that I see in these verses is they did three things that says they turn from the evil in their hearts, the violence in their hands, and they turn to God. And those are kind of three helpful ways to think about what it means to repent. Number one, I turn from the evil in my heart.
[00:27:35] There's a great ancient theologian named St. Augustine, and he says this. He says that evil is the absence of God.
[00:27:45] Evil is not a thing in itself.
[00:27:48] It's what fills the void when God is not present.
[00:27:53] And if you think about that, I think it's helpful to think about this in our hearts. In other words, we could say, what areas in my heart, in my life, am I trying to shut God out of God? To know, you can't come into this room here.
[00:28:11] I don't want your influence, I don't want your light, I don't want your direction. I don't want it. Well, wherever we try to close God out, that's where evil is in our hearts. You with me?
[00:28:24] But when we open all the doors and windows and say, lord, come and fill this house and fill this place, that's where things become different.
[00:28:36] And. And to repent is to say, lord, I want you to speak into all of my life.
[00:28:42] I want you to direct all of my life.
[00:28:46] I'm not breaking off different sections and putting up boundaries, but I'm inviting your influence and your direction and your wisdom everywhere, and I am surrendering it all to you. They also turn from the evil of their hands.
[00:29:04] Because where evil is in our hearts, it will always come out through our hands. It says, they turned from violence.
[00:29:13] And when we look at our lives and we see actions and habits that are displeasing to God, repentance is. When I say, all right, I'm going a different direction. Now, I was thinking about this because in this passage, it talks about violence.
[00:29:32] And I think in our world today, probably most of us are not pushing people in the street and sucker punching people and things like that.
[00:29:45] And so I think in some ways we think about our society as very civilized.
[00:29:50] But I would say what we don't do physically, we make up verbally.
[00:29:58] We can be violent with our words in our world today, and we can be okay with it.
[00:30:06] And that there's a violence with our words that we can bring to work, we can allow in our homes, we can say online.
[00:30:18] And I think all of that are things that we need to think about and say, lord, I don't want to be an instrument of destruction in this world to people near or far, but I want to be an agent of your mercy.
[00:30:33] And maybe that's a way we can turn from violence. And then the king says, he says, you know what? If we humble ourselves, if we turn from the evil of our hearts, we turn from the violence of our hands. He says, maybe God will be merciful to us.
[00:30:49] And he turns to God. Now, I think this is really cool because here is a pagan king who doesn't know the God of Israel, and yet he expects that maybe the true God will give him Mercy.
[00:31:09] And I thought, how remarkable is that expression of faith? And how much more should people who know the living God expect mercy from him?
[00:31:27] Here's a guy who doesn't know him, and he expects it.
[00:31:31] What should we expect in our hearts, those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ?
[00:31:37] I think we ought to expect a lot of mercy. I was taking my girls to school this week, and we kind of got out early.
[00:31:46] And I was.
[00:31:48] I on the way, and Emory, my oldest, she was like, hey, dad, if we're too early and no one's there, are you gonna drop us off?
[00:31:59] And I was like, I don't know what I've done to give you this expectation. Like, did we have some snafus that I don't remember here? I was like, no, of course not.
[00:32:11] I'm not gonna just leave you. And right there, that's not even a thought in my mind.
[00:32:18] I don't know where she got it from. Church, right? I see those eyes. You're like, I don't know.
[00:32:23] In my mind, that is not even an option, that I'm going to leave you alone. I am your dad. Amen.
[00:32:31] Now I wonder how many times we look at our heavenly Father, like, are you gonna leave me alone?
[00:32:38] Are you gonna drop me off?
[00:32:41] Lead me to figure it all out?
[00:32:43] Lead me to, you know, be in this place that is too much and beyond me. And our heavenly Father is like, absolutely not.
[00:32:54] If this pagan kid could have expectations of mercy, how much greater should our expectations be? As sons and daughters of God church, how much greater? What do you expect to get from God today?
[00:33:08] You know, the way that we actually honor him is expecting his mercy, not out of presumption, but out of an understanding of who he is. And you know what? God gives them mercy.
[00:33:24] God says, no, I'm not going to destroy you. Now, here's the deal. That was God's plan all along.
[00:33:32] And what we're gonna see is Jonah actually knew that we're gonna talk about this next week. This will be a fun one.
[00:33:38] But that's why Jonah didn't want to go. Jonah's like, God, I know you're going to forgive them, and I don't want you to.
[00:33:47] And I'm not going to be part of that.
[00:33:49] But what Jonah failed to realize is he needed God's forgiveness as much as they did.
[00:33:55] But that was God's plan.
[00:33:57] And, Church, I want you to know, that is God's plan for each and every one of us today, is forgiveness.
[00:34:07] God sent Jonah to Nineveh, but he sent Jesus Christ to earth.
[00:34:14] Jonah reluctantly went.
[00:34:18] After a whole ordeal, Jesus Christ willingly went to the cross for you and me.
[00:34:28] Jonah was glad to preach destruction.
[00:34:32] Jesus brought the good news and he freely offers that to us. His mercy is for us.
[00:34:44] He brings it to us and we receive it by turning to him with our hearts and our hands and our whole lives.
[00:34:55] Now let's do that right now.
[00:35:05] Lord, we just come before you.
[00:35:11] And we thank you, Lord, that you are the God of new beginnings. You are the God of mercy.
[00:35:19] That when Jesus was here, he said, there is a greater Jonah here.
[00:35:26] And Father, we see that. We are thankful for that and we want to receive that mercy today.
[00:35:35] I pray for those of us, especially Lord, who struggle with really receiving your forgiveness. I pray you could overwhelmingly give us a sense of it this morning.
[00:35:53] Pray, Lord, those of us who we live day to day with the wrong expectations of you, Lord, would you help us to see you clearly today?
[00:36:03] And I pray for each and every one of us, Lord, as we need a new beginning. That today could be that.
[00:36:09] That we could be confident. You have it for us.
[00:36:13] And we can leave here different than we came in.
[00:36:16] Give us these blessings. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray. Amen.
