Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well, church, it's good to be with you today. I feel like I haven't really preached in a couple weeks.
[00:00:06] So I think. Do I get that extra time today?
[00:00:10] No. Great.
[00:00:12] It's gonna be that kind of service today, huh?
[00:00:15] Well, I want to say a big thanks to Dave Gardner for bringing a great word last week. Thank you, brother.
[00:00:23] And if you are a guest with us today, my name's Chet, and if we haven't had the chance to meet, I'd love to meet you. But we are going through the of Jonah, and we're talking about stubbornness and reluctance, but also the goodness of God and the mercy of God amidst all of that. And so let's pray, and we'll get to the message together. Father. Thank you, Lord, that you are merciful.
[00:00:50] Thank you, Lord, that we run from you and you don't give up on us.
[00:00:56] Thank you, Lord, that you persevere and you endure even when we fail you and turn away from you.
[00:01:05] And, Father, could you just fill us with the hope of your mercy this morning? Could we see it more clearly? Could we feel it more deeply?
[00:01:14] And could it spark hope and faith in our hearts?
[00:01:17] Grant us that blessing, Lord, I ask in Jesus name.
[00:01:21] Amen.
[00:01:24] Well, my son Teddy is two years old and two daughters before him, Emmy and Abby. And we didn't really hit a terrible twos with the girls, or at least not that I recall. I may have blacked it out, I'm not sure.
[00:01:41] But Teddy, I think it's safe to say, is in the midst of a terrible twos.
[00:01:48] And just the other night, we were at dinner, you know, we were just eating in the house, and he wasn't eating. I was like, hey, Teddy, you know, eat your food. And he just looked at me, like, with this intense look of anger. And he said, stop talking.
[00:02:08] And I was like, dude, you just pushed every button in me.
[00:02:14] And it wasn't good. From their church.
[00:02:21] And then just this Friday, my daughter Emory was at school and she got sick. And so the school's like, can you come pick her up? And so I was like, all right, Teddy, we gotta go pick her up. Let's go. She's sick. You know, I don't want her to be there long and all of that. We gotta get hustling. And so I got him, and he's like, I don't wanna wear shoes. He's getting real upset about it. And I'm like, you're wearing shoes. You know, this is not a conversation.
[00:02:49] And so I put the one shoe on him, and he like, rips his foot away and rips the shoe off.
[00:02:55] And I was like, listen, bud, we're not doing this right now, but if we must, I'm gonna win. Amen.
[00:03:07] We can throw down, but it's better for both of us.
[00:03:11] Amen.
[00:03:13] And I'm gonna win. And I won. It wasn't pretty, Church, but I won. And I'm gonna win those battles. And what I've realized is, you know, I've got a stubborn two year old church.
[00:03:26] He didn't get that from me.
[00:03:28] I see the looks on your. I'm not saying he got it from Allie. I just don't know where it came from.
[00:03:36] It's an anomaly. Sure, sure, babe. Just close your ears for a second.
[00:03:41] But anybody else have a stubborn child? Anybody else? Yeah. Amen. Amen.
[00:03:48] Let's just pray. Let's just have a moment of lament, if that's okay. And if you wanna cry, that's fine.
[00:03:56] We all know that the challenge of that. And I think it's such a perfect image because when we see the book of Jonah, we see that God has a stubborn son too.
[00:04:07] And we've been looking at the book of Jonah. And just to catch you up, the book begins. And Jonah is a prophet, which means man. God has called him. God has trusted him. You know, God has a real purpose and plan for his life. And from what we know, Jonah has lived that out up until this point. But then we open the book and Jonah gets this call from God. And God says, go to the city of Nineveh. And this was the capital of the ancient Assyrian empire. It would be outside of Mosul, Iraq today, right in that area.
[00:04:41] And Jonah gets that call. And he doesn't like those people.
[00:04:45] He doesn't want God to help him. He doesn't want to be any part of this. So God calls and guess what? He throws a tantrum.
[00:04:55] By the way, you can still throw a tantrum as adults.
[00:04:59] It's not pretty, but it happens. And Jonah throws a tantrum. And God calls him this way and he goes the opposite direction. It says he's fleeing the presence of God and church. Jonah's a stubborn dude. Cause God's like, son, you're not getting away that easy. And Jonah buys a ticket on a boat. He's trying to just sail off into the sunset. And the Lord's like, not so fast, son.
[00:05:24] And a storm comes and everybody around Jonah realizes, okay, this is not just bad weather. Like, something deeper is happening. And finally Jonah's like, it's me, guys. And they're like, okay, great. Well, let's get this worked out. Jonah's like, no, not doing it. And they're like, let's pray.
[00:05:44] And the prophet of God is like, no, I'm not praying.
[00:05:48] And they pray to his God. And finally it gets to the point where.
[00:05:52] Where Jonah's like, just throw me over.
[00:05:56] Just.
[00:05:58] I'm done. Just throw me into the water. And the guys are like, we don't wanna do that. Like, this is. But if you're gonna force our hand.
[00:06:05] And sure enough, he forces their hand and throws em over.
[00:06:10] And then God appoints this great fish. It's not a whale. It could be. I think it's a walleye, personally.
[00:06:17] And we're gonna talk about that in a second.
[00:06:20] But God appoints this fish to get Jonah to literally swallow him. And that's where we're gonna pick up today. Now, what we are gonna see again and again, and what we're gonna see even more clearly is that, like, Jonah, here's the hard truth. Like, Jonah, you and I can be pretty stubborn.
[00:06:38] Do you believe that? Today?
[00:06:40] Don't be elbowing your spouse sitting next to you.
[00:06:44] This isn't about them, although it might apply to them. It's about us. We can be stubborn. There's a Jonah ins you with me.
[00:06:54] And God calls us, and we run.
[00:06:57] And God calls us, and we dig a hole, and we say, you know what? I'm not sure this hole is deep enough. Let me dig a little deeper. You with me?
[00:07:05] And then we get ourselves into these places in life that we don't actually want to be, but we're there.
[00:07:12] And then we get angry with God. And this is Jonah. But the good news today, and the good news of the book of Jonah is that you and I can be really, really stubborn. And we can run really fast and really far.
[00:07:27] But the good news is, God's mercy outpaces all of that.
[00:07:32] You're stubborn, but he's gonna win.
[00:07:36] You might kick the shoe off and throw a tantrum and tell him to stop talking, but he's gonna win. You with me? He's gonna win.
[00:07:45] And it's better for all of us if you go with it. That's the message of Jonah. And his mercy is greater than our ability to run. So we're gonna pick up today at chapter two, right where we left off.
[00:07:59] And let me read it to you. I love this chapter so much. It says this. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the belly of the fish. Now, I just have to point out, I love that the author says, the Lord is still his God.
[00:08:17] You know, God is a God of runaways.
[00:08:21] God is a God of stubborn people.
[00:08:24] If God wasn't willing to be a God of stubborn people, then no one could claim him as God. You with me. And I just love. That is the Lord. Jonah might be done with God, but God's not done with Jonah. You with me.
[00:08:36] And there might be times or struggles, or today we might feel done with God. But guess what? Good news. He's not done with you. Church.
[00:08:45] And he's gonna win. Jonah prayed the Lord, his God, from the belly of the fish. So now he's in this place, and he says this prayer. I called out to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me.
[00:08:58] Out of the belly of Sheol, I cried. Now, sheol is a Hebrew way of talking about the grave, of talking about death. So today we might say it this way. At the door of death, at death's door, I cried out. I called. So Jonah is just saying, I'm in a horrible position right now.
[00:09:18] And you heard my voice. You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, I am driven away from your sight. We're gonna talk about that line. Yet I shall look upon your holy temple. You see a little turning of hope here.
[00:09:42] The waters closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. Yet second yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God. Now Jonah is claiming God again.
[00:10:04] You are my God. When life was fading away, I remembered the Lord. My prayer came to you into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of the steadfast love. But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed. I will pay.
[00:10:21] Salvation belongs to the Lord. I love that line.
[00:10:27] If you have a Bible, just underline that line. Because if you want to know what the whole Bible is about, it's about that line right there.
[00:10:34] That is a great summary statement of everything, that all of the scripture points to this reality that salvation belongs to God, that we all need it and we can't do it. But it belongs to God, and God gives it freely and graciously to us. And then it says this. And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. That's a pretty picture. Isn't it?
[00:11:03] Someone made a gagging sound. First service to really illustrate it.
[00:11:09] Appreciative of that.
[00:11:11] Now, there's a lot in these verses, but I just want to first talk about the setting of these, because sometimes this can trip people up. So Jonah is swallowed by this fish. And many times in our world today, we're like, ah, you know, that's hard to believe, you know, and we've seen. You can read accounts where people are actually swallowed by fish, you know, different kinds, but no one actually survives it. And so what's miraculous about this is not the swallowing of Jonah, but that he lives after. That's actually the miraculous part about this.
[00:11:47] And many times in our modern world, a lot of people are quick to dismiss a teaching of scripture because of these miracles. Now, again, the biblical writers are writing this, and they're not saying, like, hey, this is what usually happens. They're saying, no, this is unusual.
[00:12:06] This is God's intervention. And I just wanna encourage us not to dismiss this. And if we are skeptical to it, or maybe there's people in our life that are skeptical to things like this, I would just offer this idea to you. There's a lot of different things we could talk about, but I would offer this to you. In our world today, people say, I can't believe in miracles. Or some of these things that I read in scripture are hard to take because we know so much about science, we know so much about the natural world.
[00:12:35] And we say that miracles break the laws of nature or the laws of science.
[00:12:43] Because one thing that we have learned for thousands of years is there are some really consistent things that happen in our world that's kind of foundational to everything. Like light doesn't change, how fast it goes, it runs the same speed.
[00:13:02] And there's all kinds of other things that we say. These things don't change. They're stable.
[00:13:07] And they are like laws that cannot be violated. And we talk about the world that way. Now, here's the interesting thing about that, is law and order is not the natural state of anything.
[00:13:25] Here's what I mean.
[00:13:27] If there's no law and order in my house, chaos becomes a natural state. You with me?
[00:13:33] It's not gonna take long before these feral children are destroying everything. You with me?
[00:13:40] Law and order has to be imposed by mom and dad.
[00:13:44] Chaos is what happens without that. But law and order has to come from the outside in.
[00:13:52] And by the way, there are attempted coups and rebellions every single day.
[00:13:58] And they're lucky. They're cute, you know, and so far, they've not been successful. But it's attempting. Because law and order is not the natural state of affairs of anything, right? If you and I just leave our lawns and say, hey, you do your thing, they're not gonna have those nice lines that we all love, brother. Amen. Is there anything better than just a beautiful.
[00:14:21] No.
[00:14:23] All right. Talking to the wrong service here.
[00:14:26] Law and order does in our society, right? We have judges and police officers and all these kinds of things. Because we say if we don't impose it, it's not gonna happen. You with me? What does law and order imply? It implies that there is a lawgiver working from the outside in.
[00:14:44] And so if we wanna reject all this because we say this is against the laws of nature and the laws of science, and then we have to answer the question, well, where are those coming from in the first place?
[00:14:55] Because that all kind of seems to beg the question.
[00:15:00] And beyond that, if God imposes law and order in our universe, then he could certainly change it and suspend it as he wants to, right? The one who is most powerful to create it in the first place. It's not then too much of a stretch to believe that he can interrupt it according to his purposes if he wants. And that's what we see, I think, in accounts like this. Because the book of Jonah is not just trying to teach us just one thing. It's also trying to show us something about the greatness of who God is.
[00:15:38] Because in the ancient world, oftentimes God's were like beings who had special power in the world.
[00:15:48] And if you think about, like the Roman gods and the Greek gods, like, they had power in creation.
[00:15:55] Poseidon could control the sea and Zeus could control lightning. And they were kind of more like superheroes.
[00:16:02] They were limited, but they had greater power in creation than you and I have.
[00:16:09] But what Jonah shows us is a God who has power over creation. It's a whole other category, and we're gonna see this through Jonah, that at many different times, God uses creation to accomplish his purposes.
[00:16:27] Jonah is trying to show us that, hey, the gods that you have heard about are nothing compared to. To the real God that exists.
[00:16:37] They may have power in creation, but he has power over it. He says to the walleye, get him.
[00:16:44] He gets him. He says, let him go. And he lets him go. And we're gonna see that there are more elements to this. But what I want to say is don't dismiss the reality of this, because there is something true in it and helpful and powerful and so Jonah is in the belly of the fish, and then he says a prayer.
[00:17:04] Now, just think about this for a second. Jonah has not prayed this entire time.
[00:17:10] Everybody around him has prayed. He's been stomping his foot. Nope, not gonna do it. Throw me overboard, being obnoxious, all that kind of thing. But finally, he has this moment where he goes to prayer.
[00:17:26] And I believe this is what some people call a cliff moment. I've been reading this really good book by Jim Collins. It's called what to make of a Life. And Jim Collins is one of my favorite authors. But in this book, he contrasts two people that are in the same industry and same time period, like astronauts and artists and athletes and things like that. And he compares and contrasts their life to draw out principles of what makes a meaningful life. It's a really cool book, and if you're interested, check it out. But one of the big themes in the book that he has is he says that every life has cliff moments.
[00:18:13] Some cliffs are planned, like retirement or getting out of school or and in your athletic career. And a cliff is a moment where you have to re envision a new future.
[00:18:25] It's a moment where you have to say, okay, what has been will not be, but then what will be? And you have to think about it, and you have to decide, and you have to respond. He said, every one of us in this life have cliff moments.
[00:18:39] Some are expected, some are unexpected, some are good, some are bad.
[00:18:46] Some open up possibilities, some bring possibilities down. But all of us have to figure them out. And here's what I want us to see today. That these are moments to go to prayer and to seek God in the depths of our heart and to ask for his help and to ask for his mercy. And Jonah finally comes to this point. I would say there's been a lot of cliffs, and Jonah's just jumped off him.
[00:19:19] But finally, in this cliff moment, he turns the right way and he turns to prayer. Because when we go to prayer, we experience God's mercy. Now, the text says that Jonah calls out in his distress and really call out is a little bit too tame. It's like he's crying out. He's. He's shouting, right? There can be different intensities to prayer. I was praying for the calves on Friday.
[00:19:51] The Lord saw fit to answer them differently.
[00:19:55] It wasn't a real intense prayer, though. You with me?
[00:19:58] But I've prayed intense prayers. When people I love are sick, when people I love are hurting, you with me. There's different levels of intensity to Prayer. And Jonah is in an intense moment. And life demands that sometime.
[00:20:14] Life calls that out of us sometimes. And church, I want to ask you this week specifically to be in some intense prayer for our church.
[00:20:26] So, church, we're getting very close to this building project, but this is a big week for us. Monday we're supposed to get our appraisal back.
[00:20:34] So we need that come back good and workable to close our loan. And Wednesday we have the zoning permit meeting with Eaton Township. So we need both those to line up to get rolling. And so, Church, would you pray intensely with me this week?
[00:20:51] Could we just say, lord, bless us, give us favor? Here's what I feel like.
[00:20:57] We're at the one yard line, there's some good goal line defense being up.
[00:21:05] God's gotta open a hole and somebody's gotta run through it. You with me on this?
[00:21:10] I tried this analogy before. It didn't work.
[00:21:13] It's kind of falling flat again. But you get what I'm saying.
[00:21:16] We're right there. So this is a great week to pray intensely. Will you do it with me, Church? And I'll keep you up to date. But we are close, church, but we gotta pray it through. And this is a big week for it. So Jonah prays intensely. And notice this, if you kind of analyze these verses, a lot of these verses are not Jonah's own words.
[00:21:40] Jonah is quoting the Book of Psalms.
[00:21:44] And many of the phrases in this prayer is from the Book of Psalms. Because Jonah, at some point in his life, he read God's word, he internalized it, he understood it, he taught it, he was a prophet, all of these things. And it reminds me that, have you ever noticed that when life squeezes you, it shows what's really in you? Cause that's what comes out.
[00:22:14] And if there is a good foundation, then when the pressure of life squeezes us like it's squeezing Jonah, then that good foundation will come out and it will help us.
[00:22:27] Like, here's Jonah. He is in a hopeless situation. He's squeezed. And what comes out of him are the right ideas about God and who he is and what it means to connect with him there. There is a healthy foundation there.
[00:22:43] And I want that for all of us.
[00:22:47] And I especially want it for all the kids in our church.
[00:22:51] And I'm so thankful, Church, that right now, while we're here, there are good men and women building that foundation in the hearts of our kids.
[00:23:02] I love. Sometimes my girls will come home from church and they'll say, I got the memory verse.
[00:23:08] And they'll share it. I love that. Why? Because a foundation is being built.
[00:23:14] They're going to carry that their whole life. And when life squeezes them, I want the truth about God to come out. You with me?
[00:23:22] I want that to be what comes to the surface. Because that's what they need, and that's what I need. And the good news is, today, church, we can always build and rebuild and strengthen that foundation.
[00:23:36] And for some of us today, Tina had said that we have that new Bible class starting. Ease into the Bible. And if you're like a new Christian or you're like, I want to start reading the Scriptures. But it's overwhelming. It's intimidating. I'm not sure how to do it or where to start. That's a great class to go to. And it will help. And it can help build that foundation. Cause I think it matters for all of us. And so Jonah prays, and he prays the Psalms. But even though there's a lot of good in this prayer, there's also some confusion, too. Look at verse four here. Jonah says, I am driven away from your sight.
[00:24:21] Now, we've read the story, did God drive Jonah away or did Jonah drive Jonah away?
[00:24:31] What I remember is, Jonah drove Jonah away. Anyone else?
[00:24:35] In fact, we see that God calls him and it says, he flees the presence of God.
[00:24:42] He goes to carnival.com and buys a ticket.
[00:24:50] Royal Caribbean was too expensive. I don't know. I'm just.
[00:24:56] And he tries to get away, and he's running the. God didn't drive him away.
[00:25:03] But here's the truth about life, Church. We make our decisions, and then our decisions make us.
[00:25:10] But we don't always like that reality.
[00:25:13] We wanna say, no, no, no. Jonah's in the belly of the beast. And you know what he's saying? God, this is your fault.
[00:25:19] That's what he's saying, Church.
[00:25:22] And how many of us have been there?
[00:25:25] We've made a string of bad decisions. And we're like, I'm angry at God.
[00:25:29] God's like, you're an idiot.
[00:25:34] He's probably a lot more merciful than that.
[00:25:37] It's like, no, you did this, bro.
[00:25:39] I was telling you, go the other way. You didn't listen. You didn't want to hear.
[00:25:45] You were stubborn, you were reluctant, and now you're gonna point the finger at me? I don't think so. And I'm so thankful because this is just more evidence of God's mercy. God, I would interrupt this prayer if I'm God. When he said, I'd be like, Whoa. Timeout, Jonah.
[00:26:03] Let's give this fish some indigestion. So he gets the attention here. No, no, I didn't drive you away. Right. I would wanna make that clear.
[00:26:12] But God is so gracious. He can correctly answer incorrect prayers.
[00:26:18] He is so gracious that we pray and we're confused and we're lost, and yet the Lord will still answer mercifully. And here's Jonah. So God, you've driven me away, and he doesn't see it. And I would say this church, one of the greatest avenues to growth in our life is being able to look in the mirror and own our decisions, good and bad.
[00:26:46] I'm not saying that's easy. And I think, like, Jonah, we don't want to do that.
[00:26:51] Right. It's so much easier to live our lives and to always be blaming the people around us.
[00:26:57] That's these people I live with. It's their fault.
[00:27:00] It's my boss's fault.
[00:27:02] It's culture's fault.
[00:27:04] It's his fault. It's that. And that's. I get the appeal to that. Amen. I don't wanna have to be like, well, actually, I'm here because of me.
[00:27:14] Like, that's a hard reality to come to. But get this church. That's where the growth in our life is.
[00:27:20] That's where real change can happen in our lives.
[00:27:26] And one of the healthiest things we can do is to look in the mirror 10,000 times more than we look anywhere else and say, God, help that guy.
[00:27:39] And if we ask God to help that guy or that girl, I'm telling you, there's a lot of help that's coming. You with me on this?
[00:27:46] Because whether you know it or not, the Lord is a lot more interested in changing you than changing everyone around you.
[00:27:55] And the more we get in line with that program, the better it is for everyone else. Give me a mediocre amen on that. I mean, come on, you guys are being stingy today.
[00:28:09] And so Jonah's confused. But the Lord is gracious, and I love that. The Book of Romans, it says this, that God's spirit intercedes for us and prays for us in ways we can't pray for ourselves.
[00:28:22] I envision it kind of. It's like what Chet meant to say was just, let's. He.
[00:28:30] Here's where he's going with this.
[00:28:32] He edits and he helps and he answers and he's gracious. And then Jonah says, I am in a hopeless situation.
[00:28:44] Can you identify with Jonah? Have you ever felt like you're in a place you can't. You can't figure out how to get out of. This is Jonah. Jonah, I'm in the belly of the fish. The water's pouring in. The fish is going deeper.
[00:28:59] This is hopeless. There's no way I can figure this out. There's no way I can get out of this.
[00:29:10] There's no way that I have the ability to write what is happening here, he says, but.
[00:29:20] But I know God has that ability.
[00:29:25] And I know that God is the one who will redeem my life from the pit.
[00:29:33] It just reminds me of that story about the boys in Thailand that wandered into the cave two miles deep. They got in there, but they couldn't get back out because the waters rose and the tunnels were filled with water, and it was absolutely impossible for them to find their way back out.
[00:29:55] And like Jonah, like those boys, we wander into the depths.
[00:30:01] We allow our lives to go places that we can get to, but we can't get out of.
[00:30:08] And we go to those places and we get lost and we get broken and we get overwhelmed and we get hopeless.
[00:30:20] And the good news is, although we can't get ourselves out, we have a God that is an expert at redeeming our lives from the pit.
[00:30:31] You and I, we can make a real mess with our lives, but it's not greater than God's ability to redeem it. You with me and Jodah goes. Goes to this place where he says, but, God, you are the one that can bring me out, and you are my hope in all that and church. I just want to remind us today or tell us today that God's mercy, like Jonah, that is our hope today.
[00:31:00] Now, we're not in the belly of the fish, but we may be in the belly of someplace we don't want to be, someplace we can't figure out some situation or series of choices that has brought us to this point of confusion and darkness and frustration and emptiness and hopelessness.
[00:31:23] But today, I want you to know God's mercy is greater than all of that.
[00:31:31] And it's only a prayer away.
[00:31:33] We need only ask.
[00:31:35] Jonas says salvation belongs to the Lord.
[00:31:40] I love that line.
[00:31:42] It is God's work. It is God's business. It is God's prerogative, and he offers it to each of us. Now, when we see the story of Jonah, we're meant to see that that same mercy that came to Jonah, we can expect that at all our life, too.
[00:32:02] You read the story of Jonah, you're supposed to get the impression, hey, this guy didn't deserve this.
[00:32:11] This guy deserved digestion.
[00:32:14] You get me?
[00:32:16] He didn't deserve second chances and third chances and fourth chances. He didn't deserve all that. That was an act of mercy.
[00:32:25] And we're meant to connect the dots in our life.
[00:32:29] I don't deserve God's blessings. I don't deserve his goodness. I don't deserve his help. My prayers shouldn't get through, but they will, because salvation belongs to the Lord.
[00:32:40] Because Jesus Christ has done for me and he's done for you what we could never do for ourselves.
[00:32:47] See, when we read the story of Jesus, we see that Jesus Christ, he was delivered over. He willingly went to the belly of the beast and said, that is my purpose, to go there. No one's coming to rescue me. I'm going to die. Why? So you and I can live.
[00:33:08] I'm going to be delivered over so you can experience God's real deliverance and help in your life.
[00:33:14] I'm stepping into wrath so you can always step into mercy.
[00:33:22] I've experienced rejection so that you can experience unconditional acceptance.
[00:33:30] Salvation belongs to the Lord and is offered to each of us.
[00:33:38] And Jonah shows us how to call out for him, say, lord, bring your mercy to my life.
[00:33:44] Bring your mercy to my situation.
[00:33:47] Pour your mercy to me, and we can trust that he will. Let's pray.
[00:33:58] Lord, you are merciful and gracious.
[00:34:05] You treat us better than we deserve, and you withhold our what we actually do deserve.
[00:34:16] Lord, you meet us even when we're in the belly of the beast and we've chosen to be there.
[00:34:24] You remain faithful to us even when we are unfaithful to you.
[00:34:32] You forgive our unwarranted anger and you draw near to us in our time of need.
[00:34:43] And, Lord, we pray that our souls could feel that mercy this morning.
[00:34:51] Yes, Lord, let us know it.
[00:34:53] Let us get what it means. But give us that grace where it's real at the soul level.
[00:35:02] Help us to see the beauty of it. Help us to be able to say in our hearts, with Jonah, salvation belongs to the Lord and Father, as we are suffering this morning in different ways. Lord, as we come in here with some of us, maybe hearts that are pained, so many different things. Lord, you have a mercy for every pain.
[00:35:31] You have a unique mercy for every unique person here.
[00:35:37] And, Lord, we just ask for it.
[00:35:39] We pray that great New Testament prayer, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, and we trust it. We hope in it we'll tell about it, and we rejoice in it. Help us in all this. In the great name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
