A Relentless & Merciful God

good morning it's good to see everybody on this cold wintry day survived snowpocalypse of 2022. well throughout scripture god in his infinite love shows great mercy to sinners and we see this in the clothing amount of adam and eve after they sinned in the forgiving of peter after his betrayal of jesus and ultimately the greatest example of mercy we have is christ who is the mercy of god david writes about this mercy shown to us in psalm 103 join me in the underlined portions bless the lord o my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name the lord is merciful and gracious

slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love he will not always chide nor will he keep his anger forever he does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities for as high as the heavens are above the earth so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him as far as the east is from the west so far does he remove our transgressions from us in jesus god has removed all of our transgressions and forgiven forgiveness our sins and now we can live freely because of this mercy that's given to us would you stand in worship with

us please [Music] drink thirsties the water is [Music] the world that he gave up [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] praise him praise him [Music] is [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] i've got to praise waking within my soul i'm not ashamed [Music] and nothing can stop [Music] you are [Music] every fear must bow [Music] he is with us [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh the case [Music] jesus [Music] okay i [Music] nothing can stop foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this next song we're seeing is new to our church and it and it um uses the words of the apostles creed

the apostles creed is one of the first statements that identifies and states the most essential points of the christian doctrine summarizing the apostles teachings the apostles creed professes what christians believe about the persons and work that god the father god the son and god the holy spirit so together this morning we're going to read the apostles creed out loud before we sing this new song i believe in god the father almighty creator of heaven and earth i believe in jesus christ his only son our lord who was conceived by the holy spirit and born of the virgin mary he suffered under pontius pilate was crucified

died and was buried he descended to hell the third day he rose again from the dead he ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of god the father almighty from there he will come to judge the living and the dead i believe in the holy spirit the holy universal church the communion of saints the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and the life amen there's something powerful when we just say what we believe when we say it to the fullest it's so odd to the world when we say something like we believe in the virgin birth or even more so

we believe in the resurrection that should cast and that does cast fear and awe into the darkness that brings light into this world and so as we sing this song let the words just do the work and let's sing exactly what we believe together as one body this morning [Music] creating [Music] through your holy spirit conceiving christ the son jesus who believe in god our father who believe in christ that he will rise again for i believe in the name of jesus is [Music] glorious [Music] in the foreign um [Music] oh um [Music] i believe in god our father i believe in christ the son

i believe in the holy spirit our god is free in one i believe in the resurrection that we will rise again [Applause] is [Music] jesus [Music] foreign [Music] i believe in god our father i believe in christ the son i believe in the holy spirit our god is that we will rise again [Music] heavenly father we worship you for just this entire story that this song was able to tell god we believe over unbelief as we walk out into this world this story does not fit with what the world wants to hear but this is exactly what it needs to hear god you have you

have given us the gift of your son who died on the cross for us and rose again to give us new life god this is what we believe and may we declare it boldly courageously and shed this light into the world that is so dark and needing of hope god you are the hope and that's the song we sing this morning thank you for giving us hope when when we could never provide it for ourselves what a gift god we love you and we're just so thankful this morning it's in jesus name we pray amen we good all right this time we'll we'll go ahead

and dismiss um the kids three to five and six and seven uh to the little district uh where they will be learning about god both saving daniel and uh defeating jericho through joshua and the israelites we just prayed that the lord would work in their lives this morning how's everyone doing all right sorry that song made me a little emotional um i love singing about the trinity all right we all should um yeah all right well if you have your bibles go ahead and open to jonah chapter one uh that's where we're going to be this morning we're jumping into one of my favorite books

in the old testament if you're able to say you have favorite books this is one of them for me most of you guys know i've i've got a tattoo of a whale on my arm that reminds me of how much i can be like jonah and so this is one of my favorite books to be able to walk through so i'm excited in the next six seven weeks that we'll be able to see god's beautiful mercy and grace to sinners like us through this book [Music] before we jump in as you're turning there i just want to tell you jonah is not only a story

that is dear to my heart not a only a book that i love but it's a story for us all jonah often times is seen as a fable or a fairy tale or when we think about jonah we think of a fish or a whale actually the last time i had a conversation with somebody about the book of jonah or even just scripture jonah came up and the guy was like this is why i can't believe in the bible because i can't believe that a fish would swallow a man and so he he took the fact that he jonah being swallowed by a fish as

i'm just gonna just discredit the whole thing so most people will look at jonah and have that same attitude have that same mindset or they'll look at it like a children's story or a fairy tale but it is so much more than that jonah shows us the reality of this sinful broken world and the sinful people that we often are it gives us a distinctly biblical perspective of what it means to care for our city to care for the relationships that god has given to us to care for the world that he is placed around us jonah shows us really the the theme of scripture

in jonah 2 9 we find the the main point of this whole book and really if you're in a an elevator and somebody were to say what is the christian life give me this elevator pitch you can give them this verse salvation is from the lord and that's what we see here in this book that salvation belongs to the lord and what jonah shows us is that god in his transforming grace can save even the hardest of hearts it can transform even the hardest of hearts those who you think he can't save he can and jonah reminds us of that as charles spurgeon would say

as long as there is breath in somebody's lungs there is hope to be had that god can save and that god can transform and that's what jonah shows us anthony carter in his book running for mercy which has been very close to my heart as we have begun to plan through and think through what this series would look like if you get a chance i i would go find it and read it it's a beautiful book but in his book he calls jonah every man's prophet because jonah the prophet is much like us all we can see ourselves in jonah and i hope that in

the next couple of weeks you can actually say hey that is me oftentimes when it comes to mercy i can be reluctant to show mercy to someone who i don't think deserves mercy any of you have been there before where you've looked at someone you're like nah i can't show you mercy all the while god has been showing you mercy and has shown you mercy in christ we see jonah being very disobedient to god's call we too can fall into that the great commission is still there for us and yet we can be disobedient to god's call to go and make disciples jonah is every

man's prophet this book is said to be written by jonah himself a sort of a humbled prophet who is showing his readers a confession a confession of his sinful heart when it comes to god's will and his call to go and share repentance share that the lord is the lord of salvation there's also a confession showing his readers how ridiculous it is to try and run from the will of god and his plans and that god is a relentless god to show mercy to sinners like this prophet and like us but the book of jonah is actually not about jonah what's interesting is when you

read through this book and i hope that you guys have been i've gotten text messages some of us have begun to read and see how god is working through this book and i love that keep doing it but one of the things that you can highlight or take a look at is how jonah writes this book is to see who he mentions the most and what we're getting a picture of when we see that is who's the main character you see jonah is not a story about a fish this fish is mentioned four times it's not a story about the ninevites who are mentioned nine

times through this book it's not even about the prophet who it's named after who's named 18 times in this book anybody want to take a guess about who this book is truly about god yeah god has mentioned 38 times in this book that signifies for us he is the main character jonah is not about jonah jonah is about god this book reveals his character and his attributes mainly the attribute of mercy that god is a merciful god and he loves to show mercy to sinners like us we see this in both a micro and macro way in jonah's life and in jonah's story we see

the microwave in which god continues to show mercy to jonah even in his disobedience and then we see the macro level of mercy where god shows mercy to the sailors who get introduced into the story as well as the ninevites god is a god who loves to show mercy and not only does he love to show mercy he is relentless in showing mercy to sinners like us and this is good news for us this morning it's good news for our lives that god is a merciful god and he loves to show us mercy so this is my point this morning that everything else is going

to flow from and really what we're going to see as we walk through these next six to seven weeks taking a look at jonah that god is a merciful god and so we'll take a look at these first two verses and this is what it says now the word of the lord came to jonah the son of amitai saying arise go to nineveh that great city and call out against it for their evil has come up before me what's very interesting about this passage about these two verses is when i was studying this week trying to kind of get commentary and see you know is

there any language or nuance that i need to figure out to be able to explain what's going on i found that there were not a lot of people that started talking about this book being about god from these two verses and i thought to myself man i i am excited i i text a couple people in our church this week that was like man i am jacked for jonah because of these first two verses that show us the mercy of god they show us god's plan of redemptive history and god's call to not only jonah but to us to be a part of this work

and so i i hope that you guys get as excited as i do in this this morning as we take a look at god's plan to save so let me pray and we can jump into taking a look at god's character and his plan lord you are good lord as we sang this morning we we are so thankful for what you have done for us in christ lord that you had a plan before the foundation of the earth to call people to yourself both jew and gentile among all nations as i as we take a look at jonah this morning lord help us to see

your character your goodness and your mercy help us to find comfort and joy in this call this commission of jonah as well as to us to go and share this good news of jesus christ that has come to save sinners like us i pray this in jesus name amen so if you've been around a church for a while uh you might have heard us talk about or you might have even been around for the sermon series where we walk through the christian story the christian belief in the christian formation and what i want us to see this morning is that jonah is a part of

that christian story now when we say christian story what we mean is that the scriptures are made up of god's beautiful narrative of saving and growing his people both in israel and the gentile nations around ben franklin actually is reading a biography talking about a narrative he says that he who controls the media controls the narrative and that's oftentimes what we see even today right bobet buster also says narrative is the culture's currency he who tells the best story wins we all have a narrative right we all have a narrative running through our head of how things are how they ought to be how they

might have been we all have this narrative and as believers we have a narrative from scripture that shows us what's right and wrong who we are how we should respond to this world and where we should find ultimate joy and comfort and satisfaction but we live in a world with competing narratives right we live in a world that tells us different things how we should look how we should act who we should be there are false stories of romanticism consumerism individualism perfectionism progressivism all these competing false stories that pull our affections pull our thoughts into these narratives away from the narrative of scripture but the

reality is as a believer we need to battle and denying these false stories that come up against us we need to recognize them we need to confess them and then we commit ourselves to the one true story the narrative of god's story the story of redemption showing how god through jesus christ saves a people to himself that they might live in community with him this is the true story of the bible this is why it's important for us to know the scriptures to know who god is and how he has revealed himself through his word and through the person and work of jesus christ because

as jt english would say you can't participate in a story you don't know and you will participate in your default false story regularly the reason i bring this up this story that we need to tap into that we need to continue to run to this true story of god's word we're reminded of this in this first phrase in jonah where this first verse says now the word of the lord came to jonah this phrase in the old in the old testament really should be translated and it was in the king james and new king james no i'm not advocating that we move back to that

but i do agree that the way that it's translated when it says and the word of the lord came to jonah is reflecting and showing us that this is a continued story that is happening right if you were to start a paper in your english class with and your teacher is going to be like and what where like what is this connected to right but that phrase and the word of the lord came to jonah reminds us as readers that we are a part of a story that has been happening before the foundation of the earth where you are apart as you're reading this a

part of a story from genesis 3 15 where god gives the first gospel message that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent this phrase is used 14 times in old testament literature coming up in a lot of prophetic books of the bible like this one where it's a constant reminder that there is a story going on this continual story of god's grace and mercy this is connected to what we read last week in talking about god's covenant with abraham right if you remember from what dwayne preached on last week that the covenant was made in genesis 12 and that covenant

ends with god telling abraham i will bless the i will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you i will curse but this is the promise and in you all the families on the earth shall be blessed and so this promise is continuing through the old testament it isn't just for the people of god here we find in this covenant made with abraham that this promise of a blessing would come to all nations all people because god has a redemptive story to save and to call people to himself and so jonah in that first phrase is reminding us that god is a covenant

keeping god that god is keeping his covenant even through tragedy even through some of the hardest times if you look at where jonah is placed in israel's history it's not going well and yet god is reminding his people i am a covenant keeping god as he tells us and the word of the lord came to jonah this covenant-keeping god who shows us that he has a plan of redemption and salvation and that he's continuing to fulfill this covenant to grow his people this covenant god in reading a passage like this or reading a phrase like this should bring us hope and should bring us joy

right there's a theological word for this and it's the immutability of god that he does not change in a world that is constantly changing right we've talked about this before it is constantly changing we have i mean even just look at the weather outside right last week we it's five degrees and sunny there was no snow on the ground and this week we can barely get out of our own driveways and in a couple weeks shoot even next week knowing indiana's weather that snow could be melted and it might be 60 degrees right we see change in our weather we see change in people we

see change in jobs there's change all around us and change isn't a bad thing but what's even better is a constant and that is god that he does not change the scriptures show us that he is the same yesterday today and forever malachi 3 6 tells us this characteristic of him for i the lord do not change isaiah 46 10 reminds us the same truth declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done saying my counsel shall stand and i will accomplish all of my purposes james in the new testament reminds us that we should not be deceived that every

good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights with whom there's no variation or shadow due to change scripture shows us that even in the midst of our changing world filled with highs and lows good seasons and bad prosperity and suffering god does not change so while our love for god may waver while our communion with god may not feel like it's there it is as believers in christ because we have been united in christ we know the truth that our union is secured and that god does not change and i hope that you're able to take this gospel truth

with you in any and every circumstance week in and week out as paul tells to timothy preach this to yourselves and to your people because it will save you and save them but this is a promise that i want to continue to give to you that god does not change he is constant he is faithful and he is good and his plan to redeem his people and grow them into the image of christ will not fail and so because we see this consistent theme that is happening throughout we can see the character and nature of god that he is merciful that he keeps his covenant

with his people and he has called us into this covenant through the blood of christ and as we trust in him as lord he adopts us as sons and daughters and then as we'll see he calls us back into the world he called us out of right first peter 2 9 tells us you were a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of the darkness into the marvelous light once you were not a people but now you are god's people once you had not received mercy but

now you have received mercy we are the people of god who have been called out of the darkness into this marvelous light and now we are to go back into the darkness with this light to share the good news of jesus christ to those around us what a beautiful call that we get and we are secured in knowing that when we go we have the promise that god is going to redeem and god is going to save and it is god's work in us that is growing his kingdom and we're secured that god does not change and this promise is continuing and we'll continue on

far after we're gone but we can have hope in this that god is a god who does not change and god is a god who is continuing to grow his kingdom and redeem sinners like us because he loves to show mercy the second thing i want us to see this morning from this call to jonah is that god is a merciful god who sanctifies his people by calling them out of their comfort zones this is why i love jonah and it's one of the reasons why this book has shaped my life because this reality right here is true the sanctification of the believer by god

calling you out of your comfort zone you see most of you guys may know a little bit of my story of being called to a being a pastor i felt this calling this internal calling at 15. so whenever ever somebody comes up to me and says how did you know what you wanted to do in life or how did you know to choose or it's like i'm sorry like the lord told me um and then as we like we'll practice in this church it's not just the internal calling there's a lot of external callings and affirmations as well but 15 i knew that this is

what i wanted to do but i also knew that i did not want to do this there was a wrestling and attention because i i knew just one scripture verse from james that talked about not everybody should be teachers because judgment is going to come to teachers of god's word that made me fearful of being a pastor and so i did anything and everything i could i tried to go play college football god was like no it's not going to happen i even went to school and was like you know what i'll be a teacher i'll be a math teacher i love math my dad

was a math teacher i could do this and i can have an impact on students lives right and guy was like no i remember my first evangelism class in school and all i remembered the teacher saying is because we were walking through the passage of where peter stepped out of the boat trusting the lord keeping his eyes fixed on him as he steps into a stormy waters and the application from that my teacher was like some of you are going to have to just trust the lord with your life and trust the lord with his plans for your life and that includes and i didn't

hear anything else after what he said he said that includes some of you changing your major to where god is calling you this morning i was like all right lord and the class walked out changed my major and i would love to say that i from that day on i was like all right cool i'm walking down this path the lord is calling me a pastor no there's still god had to continue to draw me back to this because i was fearful and there still is a fear of leading you all right it's a healthy fear i hope but there's a fear and this is

why i love jonah because it reminds me of that time it still reminds me to this day of of how god was merciful to me and calling me to being a pastor here and being a pastor where i previously was but this is what god does right he calls us out of our comfort zones for his glory and for our joy we see this with jonah right god calls him out of israel to go preach to the ninevites now we get the perspective of taking a look at this and being like oh cool god is calling jonah to go and fulfill the promise of abraham

that he gave to abraham in genesis 12. but i want us to take a look or at least try to put ourselves in jonah's context in jonah's shoes right this had never happened before god had not called at least in our recordings of scripture any of israel's prophets to go and preach the the good news of repentance and trusting in the lord to a gentile nation israel as a nation was supposed to do that which they continued to fail which is why they need and we need jesus but we never had a prophet individually called out to go right so that's the first thing that

we need to think about when we look at jonah and maybe try to place ourselves in his shoes but the second thing and again this is a pretty big deal for jonah as well as his readers for him to be called to nineveh because the scriptures tell us that jonah was a pretty big deal as a prophet right during the time of jonah's life um the northern part of israel the northern kingdom was not doing well right so most of the times prophets would come and prophesy like you guys need to repent you guys need to trust in the lord or god's wrath is coming

upon us so we get to second kings 14 and this is what's happening in the life of jeroboam and the nation of israel but that we find in 1425 chapter 14 verse 25 this prophet who predicts the expansion of israel and i know that's probably not super important for us but what it it shows us is that jonah received a prophetic vision that something of a blessing was going to come to israel and like all prophets if it came true then it was the word of the lord if it didn't that prophet would be stoned this vision and prediction comes true and so jonas i

mean everybody's like okay this this dude yeah he's a prophet of the lord and not only that all these other prophets are telling us how we need to change but this guy is preaching a blessing over us that finally came true so you can just imagine that jonah would just be sitting comfortable right he would not be persecuted or pursued or thrown out of israel maybe you got a book deal some tv series how to expand the borders a little diy project what we see in second kings as well as what should highl what we should see in jonah is when god is calling him

out to the ninevites the place at where he's at is very comfortable place and god is calling him out of his comfort zone and he's not calling him to just another tribe in israel who might hate him he's calling him to a gentile nation and not just a gentile nation a very wicked gentile nation i mean we see this in verse 2 where god tells him arise go to nineveh the great city and call out against it for their evil has come up before me if you take a quick look at history the ninevites were the people of assyria right nineveh was the capital of

the nation of syria syria no series coming up but the ninevites were a wicked people especially to israel especially to the people of god they were so cruel whenever they conquered a nation that had said that they would make art out of their skulls and their bones of the people that they conquered there's a lot more that i could go into but just trust me or you can go do some reading this week to see assyria was a very wicked and evil nation we see in the old testament just a hundred years later through the prophet nahum that final judgment comes to nineveh because of

their wickedness but here we see the call to jonah to go and preach the good news to them to come out of his comfort zone to go to a wicked people and preach that they would trust in the lord god is calling jonah to these people who have wronged him and wronged his people that's what i want us to understand in this call is that god isn't just calling him to a different tribe god is calling him to a people a nation that has harmed him that has wronged him and in the next coming weeks we'll take a look at jonah's disobedience but for now

i want us to just take into consideration this call to jonah because i think we have the ability to take a look at this call that jonah gets and think it doesn't seem that bad or why would jonah be disobedient but to the modern day reader or to a reader in that time as well as jonah himself this would have been a big deal this would have been a big deal the question i have for this morning for us when it comes to god calling jonah to a people that have wronged him what if we were to remove jonah and put our own names in

there how do you think we would have responded what do you think we would have done to put this in perspective this would have been like somebody someone's family on 9 11 being called to go spread the gospel in the middle east a month later in october or someone from the holocaust to go back to nazi germany and preach or even an african-american slave brought over in the slave trade to be a slave here in america who was then freed to go and preach the gospel on the plantation they weren't were once a slave that's the weightiness of this call that jonah has god was

calling jonah to a people who had wronged him and what we'll find later is that god doesn't take no from a foreign answer from jonah but that's for the next coming weeks but here is a prophet who was comfortable where he was at living a very comfortable life and god calls him out of his comfort zone to go and preach repentance to a wicked gentile nation and here's what we can learn from this the reality of this call as believers now has not changed right the call has not changed the great commission has been given to all of us god has not rescinded this call

to us as believers we are called as the church as god's people to go and make disciples of all nations baptizing baptizing them in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit teaching them all that jesus had commanded h.b charles jr says no matter how prominent or successful a church may seem to be if they are not making disciples they are out of the will of god and that includes us if we are not making disciples as a church we are out of god's will we are being disobedient like jonah and this may mean and will most likely mean for all of

us that we have to get out of our comfort zones one way or another and god will not take no for an answer this is our call as believers to go and make disciples now i have some good and bad news for you when it comes to this when you're pursuing the lord in his will there are going to be times when the gospel will call you out of that comfort zone it will call you out of a security blanket and it will challenge you but i promise you that there's no other joy and satisfaction than being in the will of god then being obedient

to his call as jim elliott once said he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose this is what the gospel does it frees us to get outside of our comfort zones it frees us to go and preach the gospel to people who have wronged us it frees us to go share the gospel in our neighborhoods to go to coffee shops every single week to get to know your barista to eventually be able to share the gospel with them to be able to enter into conversations that can seem super weird like i was telling sarah this last night

as we were preparing some of our equip workbooks i get to hang around with some unbelievers from my crossfit gym and one of the questions that i got because they know i'm a pastor was this happened last night actually they asked me do you think god is a man or a woman and so we got to get into that conversation because they know what i believe they know where i stand and they know i am a pastor and they're comfortable enough because we have shared life together and probably shared some struggles within crossfit that are like you know what i've seen you work out i've

shared in this struggle let's talk but it's through that consistent relationship going back and and doing life with people and being able to be a light in a dark place that god has afforded me those opportunities and this is the same call for us all right we need to figure out ways in which we can share this gospel with those around us stepping out of our comfort zones whatever that might look like and for some of you that is going to look different than others i feel like the last time i preached this sermon i had a family come up and was like we're gonna

we're gonna leave and we're gonna become missionaries and i was like dang it like okay this is good praise god but i don't want to lose you but i'm preaching the same thing some of you might not might be feeling a burden right now that you've got to go to a third world country or you've got to go to a country that does not have the gospel presence praise god we want to get behind you on that but for the most of us it's probably that we just need to get out of our comfort zones in our neighborhoods in our workplaces and share life and

share the gospel with those around us we are called to make disciples this proclamation is given to us and we need to be obedient to it this is what we see in jonah but not only do we see this in jonah we also see this from the greatest example that we have jesus christ right the son of god who left the comfort of the trinity to become the incarnate christ and dwell among sinners like us philippians 2 paul reminds us of this he says have this mind among yourselves which is yours in christ jesus who though he was in the form of god did not

count equality with god a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in a human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross jesus gives us this greatest example and it's a reminder that god is a missionary god that he stepped out of eternity put on flesh to dwell among us to live a life that we could never live die a sinner's death that we rightly deserved and rose from the grave three days later and is now seated at the right

hand of god i mean this is the creed we read this morning right jesus's life and his example should compel us to go i mean the great commission if we understand how the the greek works i hope you've heard this before if not write it down and try to remember it in the greek the command is as you are going make disciples and this is our call to step out of our comfort zones as we are going make disciples and finally what we see in this passage is another characteristic and attribute of god in his mercy that he is a merciful god who does not

let evil have the last word you see the prophet jonah reveals this holy and righteous and just god in these last in this last verse when god gives them the call to say go to nineveh and call out against their evil because it has come up before me what god is showing us through his characteristic and this call is that he will not let sin go unpunished i mentioned earlier that the ninevites in the assyrian nation was a very evil nation and that eventually a hundred years later god does pour out his wrath on their evil and their sin and one day he will ultimately

do that for all of sin for all those who have sinned and committed evil here on earth even when it seems like they've gotten away with it this verse in jonah as well as a totality of scripture shows us this truth that god is a holy right and just god and he will not let sin and evil go unpunished but this reality also shows us as he won't let evil and sin go unpunished he also won't allow the fracturing of sin in this world to have the last word god's good character shows us that in his holiness and his righteousness all of the evil and

the sin that is done under the sun all the moments where the wise and mistreated have lost out where the wicked made their lives on more wickedness all that will come to an end and those who have been abused and victimized they will finally see that evilness judged all that sin has touched and destroyed and broken here on earth will be restored and from this verse we can see the character of god and we can see that he is a good god that does not let this evil go unpunished that he is a just god and true justice will come from him i know right

now that might be hard to hear because some of the justice that we long for it should be done here but for those of you who have walked through injustices that just seem unfair i want to give you that promise i want to give you that hope that it will not go unpunished sin will not have the last word this good and gracious god will i also want to give hope to those who are feeling the weight of sin and the fracturing of creation if you're in a season where this fracture of sin it is apparent to you you can rest in a good god

who will not let this sin go who will restore all things and he is near to the brokenhearted so cast your burdens on him for he cares for you he gives you this call come to him all who are laboring and are heavy laden and he will give you rest take his yoke upon you and learn from him for he is gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls god is a merciful god and he will not let sin and evil go unpunished and he will not let the fracturing of sin go without restoring it and i know it's hard

to see that right now if you're walking through it but this is the hope that we have this is why like john we can cry out and we do cry out lord maranatha come quick because we long for the restoration of your kingdom so jonah shows us that we have a merciful god who does not let evil and sin have the last word and we know this to be true because he says it but he also shows it to us in the ultimate sacrifice of jesus on the cross where god's justice is most powerfully demonstrated and his wrath is fully satisfied christ took on what

we rightfully deserve because of our sin and for those of us who have placed our hope in him we have now received his righteousness that has been imputed to us and not only that but because it's been given to us we have the hope of eternal life that because of christ and what he has accomplished on our behalf we will one day live where all things have been restored there will be no more pain no more crying no more sickness and we will be healed fully and the fracture of sin will be gone forever this is what we can hope in this is the character

of who god is this merciful god who fluffs to show his children mercy and this is what i found hoping this week that god is a merciful god who is relentless in showing mercy to his children even when we are reluctant to show mercy to others who calls us out of our comfort zones and not only calls us out of our comfort zones but calls us to a plan that he created before the foundation of the earth i don't know if you want to think about something that might blow your mind but god created a plan to save people and he can and does save

but he calls us to be a part of it like i mean the best example that i can think of and that i've heard is that it's like take your child to work day every single day with god like he he brings us alongside and allows us to partake we also receive like blessings and and in our own glory as believers when we become or when we are part of this redemptive plan it i mean to me it's the craziest thing right just think about that this week that god would call you to be a part of this plan that he has already created and

he does all the work but we get to be a part of it and jonah shows us that right but we also see this merciful god who does not change and is good he truly is good and he will not let sin go unpunished he will not let the fracturing of sin not be restored and this is the god we worship this is who jonah is all about this book is about god and i pray that we would know more of who he is as we walk through this book in the next coming weeks so one of the ways that and i want to close

with communion as we do but one of the ways that we get to celebrate as well as be reminded of these truths that we just talked about that god is a good god is by this means of grace that we as believers when we take communion when we celebrate what god has done we are given this sign and this reminder that all that we saw in jonah this morning the characteristics of god's goodness and his mercy we get to be reminded by this cup of juice and bread it is the visual representation of the work of christ and what he did for us on the

cross this representation of christ breaking his body and shedding his blood is our reminder that whenever we take this communion we are not only proclaiming that christ has done this for us but we are reminding ourselves of this grace and mercy that he has shown to us and if you ever come in to church thinking man i just wish i had a sign or i just wish somebody would speak to me to say like you are forgiven that god is merciful as believers we we get that every week when we take this means of grace it is your sign show you this is what christ

has done for you and you have been adopted into the family of god so if you don't have the elements go ahead and grab them now and i'm going to instruct us once we sit back down and then we will take communion together as i said earlier communion is a time where we get to see this visual representation of what christ has done for us we get to partake with the body of christ but paul gives us some instructions in regards to how our hearts should be as we take communion right he he tells us in first corinthians 11 that there is a time where

we go before the lord and we examine our hearts before we take this whether there is sin to confess where there are relationships that need to be restored as well as if any of you are in here and you have not placed your trust in christ paul reminds us and tells us examine your hearts if you're not in christ don't take it and if you are in christ celebrate what christ has done and if any of you are in here this morning and you have not placed your trust and hope in this merciful god i would love to talk to you dwayne ransford we'd love

to talk to you about this beautiful reality that we have with our union with christ but for those of us who have placed our trust in him i'm going to give us some time to just examine our hearts examine our posture before the lord and then we will celebrate together so i'll give you about 30 seconds and then i'll read first corinthians 11 and we can celebrate and worship what christ has done for us paul says for i received from the lord what i also delivered to you that the lord jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and when he had given

thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me in the same way also he took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the lord's death until he comes this is what we do each week we proclaim his death to ourselves as well as to those around us so let's partake in communion and then we will worship continue to worship in song together [Music]

we were waiting there was mercy in your eyes oh foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] um [Music] guys [Music] of heaven held its breath till that stone was moved for good for the lamb and conquered [Music] the lord [Music] ah [Music] praise the father praise the son praise the spirit [Music] the is of kings [Music] god thank you thank you for your mercy even though we don't deserve it thank you that christ took the full weight and punishment of our sin so that we might join in eternity with you soften our hearts lord to where we need to be willing to change and open our eyes

to see those around us that we can care for and bring the gospel to and send your freshers in jesus name we pray amen