God Teaches Jonah An Object Lesson

and on your wondrous works i will meditate they shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds and i will declare your greatness they shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness the lord is gracious and merciful slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love the lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made how wonderful is him that we are loved by a god who is gracious and merciful to us slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love that even in our sin because of christ his mercy is more let

us worship him in this truth this morning would you stand with us [Music] i count on one thing the same god that never fails will not fail me now you won't fail me now in the waiting the same god who's never laid is working all things out working all things out yes i will lift you high in the lowest valley yes i will bless your name yes i will sing for joy when my heart is heavy or my days yes i will [Music] i count on one thing the same god that never fails will not fail me now you won't fail me now in the

waiting the same god who's never late is working all things out working all things out yes i will lift you high in the lowest valley yes i will bless your name yes i will sing for joy when my heart is heavy for all my days yes i will and i choose to praise to glorify glorify the name of all names and nothing can stand against and i choose to pray to glorify glorify the name of all names nothing can stand against and i choose to praise to glorify glorify the name of all names and nothing can stand against and i choose to praise to glorify

glorify the name of all names nothing can stand against yes i will lift you high in the lowest valley yes i will bless your name yes i will sing for joy when my heart is heavy for all my days yes i will for all my days yes i will for all my days yes i will [Music] [Music] god oh through your holy spirit conceiving christ the son jesus our savior i believe in god our father i believe in christ the son i believe in the holy [Music] god is three in one i believe in the resurrection and we will rise again for i believe in

the name of jesus [Music] is into darkness you rose in [Music] in glorious our father i believe in christ the son i believe in the holy spirit [Music] and we will rise again for i believe in the name of jesus i believe in you i [Music] believe that jesus christ is lord i believe in [Music] i believe that jesus christ is lord [Music] i believe in god our father i believe in christ the son i believe in the holy spirit our god is three and one i believe in the resurrection that we will rise again foreign [Music] communion and in your holy church i believe

in the resurrection when jesus comes again for i believe in the [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 for i believe in the name of jesus [Music] [Music] what love could remember no wrongs we have done omniscient knowing he counts not there some thrown into a sea without bottom our sins they are many his mercy is more praise the lord his mercy is more stronger than darkness our sins they are many his mercy is more [Music] we're patience

would wait as we constantly roam what father so tender is calling us home he welcomes the weakest our sins they are many his mercy is more praise the lord his mercy is more stronger than darkness new every morning our sins they are many his mercy is more [Music] so [Music] what riches of kindness he lavished on us his blood was the payment his life was the cause we stood beneath the dead we could never afford our sins they are many his mercy is more my lord praise the lord his mercy is [Music] his mercy is more praise the lord his mercy is more stronger than

darkness knew every more our sins they are many his mercy is more our sins they are many his mercy is more [Music] you guys can go ahead and have a seat um i'm gonna have the rights come on up here uh this this month um in our time of prayer and our member-led prayer uh we're going to be highlighting uh some missionaries some close to our church as well as some just globally and so we wanted to make that aware to you guys as well as uh just lead us into time of prayer so i've asked greg and ange to go ahead and do that

thanks well we're uh thankful that the church is taking the the time and putting a priority on global missions i don't know about you but i i can get so focused on my little sphere and think about what's going on in my life and maybe community group maybe church maybe city but for me global missions is not a day-to-day uh front of mind kind of thing and so i need somebody to put it in front of me and so i'm thankful that the church is putting it in front of myself and all of us today and look forward to talking about a couple different spheres

uh where we see mission work happening right now so we're going to talk about uh like i said two different spheres of mission work uh andrew's going to talk about first and then i'll talk about the second and then we will pray together this past year god has blessed the district so much um so much so that we've been able to bring on our new our first missionary here at the district which is so exciting the sanchez family they came here last year and presented their work that they were going to do in the dominican republic they have been there for a couple months now

and we actually have a clip um this morning to share with you guys just what god is doing in their brand new church so check it out it's been great to see the lord do great and mighty things for his glory first of all with our family we are so grateful for the ways that our families adjust into the new culture and to the language and to the life here we've seen we've developed new relationships and new partnerships that are helping us transition well as a family but also it's been amazing to see the lord saving people for the sake of his name here in

santo domingo this past sunday at our church two of our ladies two ladies that have been coming to our church for the past month and a half or so they came and they share the news that they finally understood the gospel clearly and that they received jesus as their lord and savior their names are olga and indra we praise the lord for that we are so excited we are going to plug into one of our grace groups and we met here this past wednesday at our house and they were on fire for jesus and we pray that they will continue to grow in their relationship

with god with one another and also with the world thank you so much for your support we should pray please for uh a meeting place space that we need right now we are looking for a meeting place similar to the same situation you guys had there in indianapolis when we visited and presented the ministry at your church we are meeting at a co-working space and we are praying that the lord would open a door for a more suitable place for us we need a space for the kids we right now don't have a perfect setup for the kids and also a cheaper uh location that

we can afford we praise the lord for his provision he provided already for these past two months but in the long run we don't have the resources to be able to be there uh long term so wins and challenges that we are facing right now they are all pointing us to love and rely more on our lord and savior jesus christ thank you so much for your support on behalf of the center's family we love you and we hope to see you soon bye so that's exciting that's manuel sanchez and his wife and four kids they just went to the dominican about eight months ago

some of you might be on their email newsletter list and if you're not and want to be like i said we we as a church support them we send them money every month and we support them so if you want to know more about them i could help you and probably pastors could help you get on their mailing list but praise the lord for what's happening there we also want to turn some attention to to what's happening in uh in ukraine so there are missionaries that are still in ukraine some missionaries have fled ukraine to friendly surrounding areas have have heard of how some missionaries

who have fled either they're they're having new connections they're they're they're fleeing with unbelievers i mean that this is an opportunity it's a gospel opportunity for missionaries even as they are fleeing the country but there are also missionaries that are remaining in ukraine uh read or heard this week of you know in some cases it's uh missionaries with their churches bunkering down in church basements makeshift bomb shelter and that's what they're they're dealing with doing zoom calls from a closet so there's no light i mean this is what they're they're dealing with as they as they face the the the russian invasion and so we

want to we want to pray for um missionaries and christian leaders over there in a few different ways one we really want to pray that that god would change the hearts of of the leaders in russia that are attacking these people we want to pray that this this invasion this attack would end so that the missionaries can get back to normal christian work but even even still as they're facing this conflict we want to pray that god would be at work even in and through the conflict that people would be saved would come to christ through even the evil that is happening and then third

we want to pray for just strength you know in times of need like this a lot of times eyes are on pastors and christian leaders what do we what do we do it's physically exhausting spiritually exhausting emotionally exhausting and so we want to pray for for strength for for the missionaries in ukraine so we're going to pray for uh for for both of these spheres and then after we pray gonna actually uh real quick 30 seconds give tell me more about an opportunity where if you want to continue to hear more about global missions and what god is doing around the world an opportunity coming

up in a couple weeks that i want to share with you but first let's let's go to the lord in prayer father we are so thankful that uh that you're at work even as we look around the world and we see conflict and we see pain and we see suffering we see you at work and we want to lift up those who are doing your uh your work in ukraine and even uh the nations surrounding ukraine this morning just just seeing church services that are still happening in ukraine such an encouragement i just want to pray first of all that you would change the hearts

of those who are making the decisions to attack ukraine and invade that nation we we are reminded of how even the king's heart is like a stream of water in your hands and you turn it wherever you want and we pray this morning that you would change hearts and end this conflict and allow the ukrainian people and the missionaries there to get back to what they have been doing but even in this conflict we pray that you would be at work we know that what what man can mean as evil and what satan can mean as evil you mean for good and we pray that

you would allow the gospel to go forth even more broadly and strongly and with more conviction and more receptivity than it even has prior we're thankful for how you work these types of situations for the spread of the gospel just as we see in the case of the early church we pray that the gospel would spread and that the enemy would lose through this conflict and we pray for strength for the missionaries that are at work we pray that you would graciously empower them through christ to continue the good work that they are doing we pray that you would give physical strength we pray that

they would get rest even as they're getting shelled at night when they're trying to sleep and they can't rest and they're working during the day we pray that somehow you would give them rest we pray that you give them spiritual strength that as they are leaders of people people are looking to them we pray that you would give them the strength to minister we just ask for your grace to be upon them we pray for our missionaries the sanchez family as they've started their ministry that you've called them too in the dominican republic god please make their faith strong make the opposing enemy stand back

we know there will be sorrow and discouragement and heartache while on the field father we ask that you go before them and remind them often of how faithful you are and always have been abundantly shower them with bold courage as they put on your armor to stand against the enemy as stated in ephesians 6 enrich their faith to fight any spiritual battle before them remind them that they are not alone and most importantly that you are with them ministry and service with an eternal mindset can be heavy at times even when the harvest is great we pray father that you would give joy and peace

to this dear family as they are in a place where everything depends on you may they entrust their unknown future to their king bring them to our minds regularly in prayer as they have gone out by faith and are trusting you entirely in a new land for wisdom and discernment and provision we pray for their safety and your favor as they take every step with obedience into this new city and culture we pray that the lives they come in contact with would be open and willing to hear and receive the beautiful and life-altering truth of your son jesus christ we are so in awe that

you have chosen to redeem the souls of these two women who were recently saved by your grace god we ask that you would show yourself mighty and provide the perfect location for their worship gatherings may the space you have set aside for their gatherings be so perfect that they're growing body that it that it overwhelms them as they declare that god only you could have provided it god only you can make a way for this family and their team to see fruit for their labor only you can make an eternal difference help us here at the district to look for ways to love manuel jenna

josue nawami naitan and salome thank you for the opportunity to serve this sweet family as they serve you in the dr we love you god amen again we're thankful for the fact that our church is putting a focus on this and if if you're stirred to to hear more um it just so happens it's like god is you know sovereign and stuff uh there's an opportunity in a couple weeks we ang and i uh have known a missionary couple for the last 16 17 years when we first got to know them they were they were headed to papua new guinea as missionaries to a new

to a people group that did not have a the gospel in their language a bible in their language they were going through training at a place called new tribes mission which trains people to this still boggles my mind when i think about it they go to people groups that do not have a written language they create a written language they translate the bible into that written language and they teach it to them that's what this organization does and these people went to papua new guinea very dangerous area crazy stories there um they're now back they were there for several years ministering they're now back and

they travel all over they're based in tennessee they travel all over the midwest and the south and they tell people about what god's doing around the world and they're gonna be in our home in in two weeks um he asked me to mention they're not looking for money okay they're fully supported we're not gonna shake anybody down they're not gonna try to raise any support uh they're fully supported they just like to go places and tell people about what's going on in the world what god is doing in places like papua new guinea so we're going to communicate more about that but we'll just throw

that out here as an opportunity just to be thinking about in a couple weeks so again thankful for this opportunity to draw our attention towards global missions and just pray that this will continue to be something that god works in our heart over thank you all so much for sharing with us this morning no i don't just hang on to it all right at this time we're going to go ahead and dismiss our three and five-year-olds and six to seven-year-olds uh can head out to their class and for everyone else if you've got your bible going grab those open them up to jonah chapter four

we are actually going to be wrapping up our series in the book of jonah this morning and so it's been a good seven weeks as we've been walking through it and as we come to the end of this book uh i i can't get out of my mind one of the lyrics and the songs that we were just singing um though our sins are many his mercy is more and and i feel like that's really just kind of been an ongoing theme throughout this book uh especially highlighting in just this this rebellious prophet jonah though his sins are many god's mercy is more god's pursuit

of him is more god's graciousness towards him is more and we even see that not in the life of jonah but we also see that in the life of the ninevites though there their sins are many god's mercy is more and and again as we kind of come to the close of this book i'm really hoping that that's just kind of the anthem for our lives as we as we move on from this book is that we just remember that that not only are we like jonah but we're also like the ninevites i mean we're just we're all sinners and we all understand that we

all come to an understanding of that and god is constantly pushing towards us and he's appointing things that happen in our lives both that are positive and negative in order for us to come to the ends of ourself to be able to begin seeing him and seeing him clearly and rightly to be able to repent of our sins to be able to confess our sins be able to come to him in our discomfort of the circumstances that both we've created or that god maybe even sent uh in order to bring us to him to experience him in his fullness and to experience his love and

his comfort and his grace and his mercy and so again i know for me this has been just a good a good time walking through this and i hope it has been for you as well even though it's uncomfortable all right it's uncomfortable at times and god has to do things sometimes to kind of shake us out of our discomfort to be able to get to his grace and his mercy and again we're going to see that today as we close this out where jonah is is just unrelenting in his rebellion and unrelenting in his complaining and his discomfort and not just wallowing in his

sin all right he's just wallowing in his sin and so it's going to be an interesting one as we close it out today because the book really doesn't close there's no like wonderful conclusion to this at the end and so we'll just kind of um see what happens when we get there because also this happened to me on friday i believe on friday i was opening up the sermon and something happened where i deleted it and could not retrieve it and so had it wrapped up closed up and uh and then literally the only thing i could recover was the introduction in like the revision

history so no idea what happened there uh so anyways i i showed up early this morning and tried to recall as much as i could and uh frantically wrote it all down so we'll see what happens but let's just open up god's word and we're gonna read it and we're going to roll with it lord willing we're going to be in verse 5 and we're going to look at verses 5 through 11 closing it out here jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there he sat under it in the shade till he

should see what would become of the city now the lord god appointed a plant and made it come over up over jonah that it might be a shade over his head to save him from his discomfort so jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant now two things i want you to see here just in these two verses and and and kind of the way that i titled this point is just different shades of comfort um different shades of comfort and there's there's an idea here where jonah believes that he's building and constructing something for his own comfort which at the end of the day

we're going to see is inadequate and anytime that we try to construct something for ourselves to provide ourselves comfort and in this case especially when it has to do with sin that we're walking in it's never going to be comfortable it's never actually going to execute the very thing that we want it to do and so what jonah is doing here is if you've followed along with the story jonah the whole point of the book is jonah does not want to go to nineveh to fulfill the calling of god on his life to go and preach to these sinners in nineveh and to share the

gospel with them to share the good news of god being their creator and wants to be in relationship with them and wants them to repent of their sins and come into a relationship with god jonah doesn't want that because he doesn't like the ninevites all right he hates them he does not want them to be blessed and to become into the family of god so he tries to go the other route and goes to tarshish instead of nineveh and god as we see in in chapter one appoints things to happen to get jonah back to where god wants him to be all right he wants

them in nineveh in the great city and he wants them preaching the gospel there jonah leaving and fleeing god appoints a great storm god appoints the lot to fall on jonah when the sailors are casting it to try to figure out who is the reason for this storm god then appoints a great fish to swallow him up and to then literally vomit him out on the shore where nineveh is over by and literally just says you are going to go and do what i have called you to do jonah doesn't want to do it and so then as we see in chapter three he actually

does go i mean he he repents in in chapter two he prays in the belly of the fish he prays to the lord he prays a theologically rich prayer he repents he goes to nineveh but yet he still does the bare minimum he does the bare minimum literally eight words is all we get he shares eight words with an innovite and god uses that to literally save the city they repent they they they confess their sins and they turn to god away from their sins well jonah in this moment and as we've seen throughout all of scripture is usually when those who are servants of

god go out to preach and proclaim god's word when people repent and are saved those servants rejoice with them i mean they throw a party they celebrate that a sinner came to know the lord jonah here does not do that jonah is not excited about the fact that the ninevites become become christians if you will in the greater story of everything going on he is not happy about that and that's what we saw last week he was frustrated it displeased him that the lord would actually do this so what jonah does now is he literally leaves the city as they're celebrating as they're worshiping he

leaves the city and he goes outside the city and he creates this makeshift booth all right and and the way that they would describe that in this current context would be something similar to like if your three-year-old tried to build a tent or a fort you know by themselves in the room with some sticks and a sheet all right like that's what he's trying to construct here is literally what you would see in a marketplace that's got poles and a sheet over top of it now jonah doesn't have a ton of supplies all right he didn't get to check two bags on the great fish

express like as he was heading out like he he doesn't have a ton of supplies so he's just grabbing whatever he can find outside of this city and trying to construct something that is going to provide him some comfort so he can do this one thing so that he can wait and see what would become of the city i'm just going to wait and see what would become of the city like there's a little bit of of still resentment here where jonah is maybe saying is god going to regret what he's just done for the city or maybe the ninevites are going to recant what

they just believed in and and got and jonah's gonna sit back and say see see i told you god like they're they're not a people worthy of your blessing they're not a people worthy of your grace and mercy i'm just gonna sit back and watch this whole thing implode and i'm going to be in my own comfort zone watching it from afar i'm not going to be in the middle of this when it goes bad for you lord so jonah is outside of the city and he kind of tries to build his own comfort here and the reality is is again our comfort is never

adequate our comfort is never adequate especially when our comfort is sin like jonah is sinning right now he is still sinning right now believing that what he's constructing here is actually providing comfort but what the lord does is the lord comes in and steps in and he actually provides something for jonah that helps him he provides something that helps him now before i get to that i i want us to kind of look at something here this idea of of seeing what's going to happen or this mentality of i'm just going to wait and see i i serve on um a church planting team that's

in the city uh that's a part of one of our networks with send network all right so our church is in four different church planting networks we're kind of like an indy car we've got multiple stickers uh sponsors attached to us to to help us as a church and on one of these teams i'll just be honest with you it's been a train wreck since we've planted all right like when we when we planted there were 16 other churches planted at the same time and through again like just so many different things that have happened of those 16 churches that are planted there's only two

churches left so so again this is in in our five years six years that we've been here as a church 16 the same year all right 2016. that year 16 churches planted and there's only two of us left all right that that should be both encouraging and terrifying at the same time like what what's what's going on but one of the things that we've seen is since that year there there have not been any other churches planted like literally in the last three years with tons of of monetary resources at our disposal as far as within the network there have been no churches planted now

some of that is because of the leadership that's been in place but some of that is also because of the churches that are left and the churches that did exist even before that they're kind of in this idea of you know what we haven't really agreed with leadership that's been in place we haven't agreed with things that have been done so we're just going to wait and see we're just going to wait and see and there's new leadership now on the table that have been meeting with me that have been meeting with some of the other planters who are trying to pull a plan together

and how we can collaborate together as churches to pour into new planters who are coming into the city like there's a great plan now there's a great vision for more churches to be planted in the city but the churches that we need on board to be able to see this done in an efficient way are sitting back and are just saying we're just going to wait and see and i'll tell you nothing will change with that mindset nothing will change with that mindset like no churches will be planted with that mindset and if there are churches that are planted those churches are going to struggle

if there's not a collaborative effort coming together to see things happen now to bring that down because for you you might be like well okay that's that's great but that doesn't really impact me directly because well it's other churches the body of christ our church full of members if there are things that go on within our church that frustrate us or that upset us or whatever it might look like if we begin to act like jonah and we go outside of the city and we set up our shop and we get under what we think is our comfort level and we begin to say we're

just going to wait and see what happens that does not help our church it does not help our body it does not help our unity it does not help us to spur one another on and encourage one another it helps no one to do as jonah is doing here no one and he thinks it is helping him he thinks it is helping him and so what god does here is god actually then appoints a plant god does what he did in in chapter one he begins to appoint things to happen and what he's about to do is again he's just going to show jonah that

he's god that he's the one that's in charge that he's the one that's in control and he's going to do this and so what we see here is that god then appointed a plant and made it come up over jonah that it might not that it might be a shade over his head what that tells us there is that whatever this makeshift shelter that jonah created was not providing him the shade that he was hoping it was providing because god had to then provide a plant to come up over jonah and actually give him some shade so what we see here is that again what

joan is trying to construct to comfort himself is inadequate what we try to construct to comfort ourselves is inadequate and god does a grace here by appointing a plant to actually come up and provide him comfort provide him shade in his discomfort and to save him from his discomfort one of the things that god is doing in our lives every single day is saving us from our discomfort but really what he's doing is saving us from ourselves simply put he's saving us from ourselves that is the greatest grace of god to you it's not christianity is not god saving you from your enemies it's not

god saving you from the sin that's out there it's god saving you from the sin that's in here that's in here like no one sends you to hell your sin is what sends you there your sin is what's destroying you and causing discomfort in your life in your life it's what's causing decay in your soul when you feel unwell it's your sin now do people sin against you and it doesn't feel great absolutely that happens absolutely that happens but ultimately the way you respond in that can have more issues within your life than what their sin is actually causing towards you the ninevites have sinned

against jonah and israel they've sinned against them jonah hates that jonah does not like them for that but jonah's sin right now in disobeying god in disbelieving god's goodness and grace and choosing to sit outside of it causes him more discomfort than what the ninevites have ever done to jonah himself that's just true and we need to know that and we need to believe that church we need to believe that so god sends this plant and makes it come up over jonah that it might shade him over his head to save him from his discomfort and jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant jonah's

happy all right he he finally got what he wanted which was comfort which was just relief and then god does something that we might find humorous here i gotta find it because i'm obviously off the rails here verse seven here we go but when dawn came up the next day god appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered and when the sun rose god appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on the head of jonah so that he was faint and he asked that he might die and said it is better for me to die than to live but

god said to jonah do you do well to be angry for the plant and he said yes i do well to be angry angry enough to die so god here is again doing the very same thing that he did in chapter one jonah rebels and is fleeing tarshish now jonah is rebelling from nineveh and fleeing it to go outside of the city outside of god's will outside of god's joy outside of god's rejoicing over people who have come to know him and while he's out there he's trying to provide some comfort for himself similar to like when he was in the belly of the boat

and he was trying to look for comfort and he's just sleeping sleeping on the job he's trying to do the same thing here and god again he's not going to have it so i'm going to appoint not only a plant but i'm also going to appoint a worm that's going to come in and kill the plant after the plant is dead and the shade goes away i'm then going to appoint a scorching east wind that's going to come in so that the sun literally is not only beating down on him but it feels like he's got just a heater turned on that's blasting right towards

him like god is going to if you think jonah your discomfort in your soul is an issue i'm going to make sure that your circumstances are creating a ton of discomfort right now because what i'm trying to do jonah is i'm trying to make you aware of yourself i'm trying to make you aware of yourself because what sin does is sin makes you unaware of yourself sin makes you frustrated and sin just makes you dumb like really sin just makes you dumb i mean remember our first parents adam and eve what'd they do after they sinned they tried to hide from god in his creation

that he created like how do you do that you can't you cannot hide from god but they believed that they could hide from him that he wouldn't find them jonah and his dumbness felt as if as if he could leave god as if he could flee from the face of the lord as if he could go somewhere that god was not sin just makes you dumb and what god's doing here is god is showing up in the story in this life of jonah in his discomfort and is making him more discomfortable is that a word uncomfortable so that he would begin just like he did

in the belly of the fish so that he would begin to become aware of not only his surroundings but his soul but his soul and that's why the lord begins to ask these questions like do you do well jonah to be angry jonah might very well be the worst naval gazer that i've ever seen and again the most unaware person that i've ever seen jonah can't help in his anger constantly pour it out like here he's he's angry with the plant all right at first he was angry with with the lord and what the lord is doing and now he's angry with a plant because

again that's where he was putting his hope that's where he was putting his comfort was in this plant that again the lord begins to ask these questions did you do anything to make the plant grow absolutely not jonah you've literally throughout this entire time have been nothing but disobedient and yet the lord in his faithfulness is constantly pursuing jonah in his disobedience to discipline him to discipline him because what jonah is doing and really just acting like a toddler here what jonah is doing is choosing to live out the course of this moment in his life by robbing himself of just experiencing joy like for

whatever reason he's okay with that he's robbing himself of joy and he actually like when the lord asked do you do well to be angry and he responds yes i do well to be angry angry enough to die like we've got to do something with that we've got to process that in a certain way because this is this is actually not jonah like signing off on his suicide note like that's not where he's at what what jonah's what's happening to jonah right now and i believe this happens to us often whether you believe it or not jonah is having an existential crisis where he is

warring with his flesh and his sinful nature while at the same time understanding the spirit of god that dwells within him because there are two things going on here in his flesh and in his sinful nature he hates the ninevites hates them does not want anything good to happen to them and he's still warring with that he's still dealing with that and this is good for us to understand because what that tells us is is that in our already not yet and what i mean by that is there's a moment in your life where you've been saved but that in the moment did not change

every single affection that you have in that moment it did not flip a switch and all of a sudden now you love everything that is about god and you hate everything that is not from god because if that were the true case then we would choose not to sin every single day and we would choose to worship god in all things if perfectly we loved everything about god and we hated everything about this world now obviously that's what scripture tells us to do love god and hate everything in this world pursue that lifestyle but that's what sanctification is is it's helping us see more of

jesus in our lives and what jesus loves and so that we can then also see all the things that jesus hates and we can then begin to be molded and transformed into those things so that we begin to walk in step with the spirit so that at the moment that you're saved is not your most mature state in jesus christ it is actually probably you looking like a toddler and that from that moment on the more that you know jesus and abide in christ the more that you become like christ the more that you actually mature as you get older as you get more wiser

in the scriptures regardless of physical age but as you spiritually mature and spiritually age you begin to think like jesus you begin to feel like jesus you begin to talk like jesus you begin to share the gospel like jesus you begin to literally have jesus worked out in your daily life and as that happens you begin to hate more and more and more the sin that still dwells within you that's why paul when he's talking in corinthians is literally wrestling he's like the thing that i hate i continue to do the thing that i love i don't do why he's working out his salvation he's

working out this new existential crisis that he's dealing with he's working out the fact that there's still sin in him but yet there's also this savior in him that provides for him the ability to wrestle these things and to be able to say yes to jesus and no to sin so that he says there's moments where we are able to transform and grow from one degree of glory to the next we're able to move on from milk to meat we're able to mature and here jonah is struggling with this idea he's struggling and in his theology he knows that when he dies he gets to

go to glory and he no longer has to worry about this issue anymore so for him in this moment when lord when god's asking him the question do you do well to be angry he says you know what you know what would actually be well for me is just to not have to deal with this die go on to glory and i'm perfect i don't have to work out this nationalism this ethnocentrism this racism whatever you want to call it i don't have to work out this being transformed so that i eventually love the ninevites and i rejoice with the ninevites he's in his soul

right now he's warring with that and doesn't want to do that so it's better for him to die and go on to be in glory that's not anti-bible that's not anti-scripture the apostle paul said the same thing when he's dealing with his thorn in the flesh and when he's dealing with his own sin when he's dealing with just his daily pressures the lord asks him a question like do you do well and he basically says it would be better for me to go to heaven and be with the lord than it is for me to be here but he then also says for your sake

the church for your sake the people it is better for me to stay because there's more work to be done in spreading and sharing the gospel so that more people get to know jesus and for the for the joy of you and for me it's better for me to remain and later get to glory and then be perfected and explain experience all that is to happen there like that's the mature response when it comes to understanding the existential crisis like this is why i've got a friend um who planted a church on the southeast side of the city refuge bible church uh we're in partnership

with them as well and as we're in partnership with them like this is a family who had five kids and one of their kids right about the time when he was two years old drowned in a pool and died terrible terrible this happened about three years ago and constantly i see jason post on social media come lord jesus come what he's essentially saying is it's either better for us to die or the lord to return right now than to continue living but i know what he's saying because what he's saying there is it's it's better for me to not have to deal with any sin

and to go be with the lord that is better but at the same time because i've had conversations with jason he's also in the same breath able to say but it's also still good to live each day because there is joy to be had there is joy to be had even in the darkness even in the discomfort there is joy to be had and that's why i believe god is asking this question to jonah jonah are you well in your sin and i think that's a question for all of us like and and i know you can already answer it when when you're pouting when

you're running from god when you're choosing not to abide in christ when you're choosing to not participate like it's we war with this every week and i don't want to pretend anything guys like participating in the body of christ can be a discomfort is it not i mean you know it every single week when your community group night rolls around you're thinking man there's so many things i could get done tonight if i don't go right i'm just tired it's been a long day kids are being terrible and in those moments when we choose to give ourselves over to that we then rob ourselves of

the joy of being in community so that we can then be spurred on to see jesus to love jesus to know jesus and to be encouraged because in reality if we're so busy and so tied up and so exhausted from what's going on in our lives then maybe we need community to help us abide in christ and maybe the very thing that we need is to commit ourselves to doing something that we may not want to do in the moment what jonah needs most right now is to commit himself to what he does not want to do and that is to go rejoice with the

ninevites because if he were to do that god wouldn't have to ask him do you do well to be angry because in his rejoicing with the ninevites he would actually be well because just like what we see with the apostle paul what makes paul's joy complete is not all of his discomfort being take or taken away what makes his joy complete is that in the midst of his discomfort he is seeing sinners become saints he is seeing the joy of others come to know jesus come to love jesus come to treasure jesus and as he is seeing that he is welling up with joy because

he is knowing that there is someone who is now no longer experiencing eternal life and damnation but now is going to be able to experience eternal life with jesus forever and be taken care of forever and to have all glory forever and be able to rule and reign alongside of christ forever in the new heavens and the new earth and to literally just get to play in god's background or a backyard forever like that is the greatest joy for a believer that's the way god set this up god set this up not for us to do this individually not to do this individually and jonah's

running solo he's running solo this is one of the reasons why i believe as we see in the new testament the way god works this out is when he begins sending out his disciples to go and spread the good news it is never done solo never and the reason why i believe that is is because there's existential crisis that we have there's moments where we're wallowing in our sin and we need community to come into the mix we need a barnabas who his name means son of encouragement we need someone to spur us on you pity the plant for which you did not labor nor

did you make it grow which came into being in a night and perished in a night should i not pity nineveh that great city in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also much cattle god gives this real life illustration for jonah you see he gives jonah this plant and then the worm comes and eats it and kills the plant the plant dies and jonah grieves the death of this plant and what god is doing in the illustration of this plant is he's illustrating his heart for the ninevites and and

and what i believe because again we don't we don't get to see it that's it that's the end of the book what i believe and what i hold on to is that whether it happened there or it eventually happened or maybe it didn't happen and jonah dies and goes on to glory it doesn't matter what actually happens is god reveals his heart and in revealing of his heart everything works out everything works out god's teaching jonah a lesson here that you're pitting this plant that you had nothing to do with and i'm pitying these people that have had nothing to do with me and i'm

reaching out to them and i'm saving them because that's god's heart you see for a lot of us well all of us before we came to know christ we had nothing to do with god we wanted nothing to do with god and i say that even if you're saved at the age of six years old whether you were saved at six like again if you've ever gone over and done the three to five year old class or or if you go on the nursery you'll see that they want nothing to do with god it's just true they're sinners okay and you're like not my little

angel no they're sinners they're sinners we're all sinners we don't want anything to do with god but god's heart towards us is not the same as ours towards him god is appointing things that happen in our lives so that we can become aware of his grace and his mercy we're seeing that in the ninevites and we're seeing that in jonah and it's an opportunity for us to enter into god's appointed means so that we can see his heart and so that his heart begins to change our hearts begins to change our hearts and that's why i love the fact that we highlighted the nations and

praying for the nations before the sermon because for us our comfort might be well we'll take the gospel to those who are exactly like us same chapter of life of us same skin color as us same socioeconomic status as us you know people that we can relate to jonah here has no relation to the nanobites none hostile relationship my prayer is that we don't have to get to the place where god appoints east winds and storms and great fish and plants i hope that he doesn't have to do that to get us to see his heart and where his heart is leading us in our

city my prayer is that we can learn by others and see what god is doing and tear down our little makeshift shelters and begin to go back into the city and rejoice with those who are rejoicing like do we do well to stay in our sin do we do well to be angry do we do well to be indifferent do we do well to not listen to the call of god on our lives for each one of us and you don't even have to answer that you know the answer you know the answer and honestly this isn't this shouldn't i mean it's going to come

across as like oh now i feel shame i feel guilt and i feel i feel bad about this that's okay like discipline at times hurts we discipline our children and sometimes that hurts but there's joy to be had as you learn and grow and change and mature there's joy to be had do you do well to continue in your makeshift christianity or are you willing to let god move you into his version of christianity that actually provides you comfort let's pray father we thank you so much for your goodness to us we thank you for your grace and your mercy we thank you for this

story of jonah it is it is one that that god we we can't run from and it's one that i hope we don't run from lord i i know i mean speaking for myself i just know there's there's moments and there's days where i just don't i just don't want to i just don't want to and i'm grateful that you don't let me just wallow in that sin you don't let me you continue to appoint people to hold me accountable and to spur me on to love and good deeds and to fulfill the calling that you've placed on my life and i pray for our

people in this church that the very same thing would happen is that when we don't want to someone will step in and it might hurt it might be a frustrating conversation we might want to wait and see what happens but lord i pray that we are faithful to one another to encourage one another and spur one another on because we are actually for our comfort but comfort that's only found in you and you alone not in anything else joy that is found in you and you alone and the work that you are accomplishing every single day in the city we want to join in that

and participate we don't want to sit on the sidelines anymore we don't want to sit outside of the city anymore just waiting and seeing that does not do well for us and so we asked lord we ask that you would appoint some things to happen appoint some things that happen in our lives that bring us back to you and to your mission it's in your name we pray amen as we come to this time of communion i'm going to ask you to go ahead and stand and as you stand if you don't have the elements i ask you to go ahead and head back and

get those off the table and and come back to your seat as we do this one of the beauties again of this story in jonah is that it is a as we call a type of christ a type of christ this story does at the center embody exactly what jesus christ accomplished for us but as it says in scripture as jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights our lord jesus was in the grave for three days and three nights that he was actually accomplishing for us our comfort while he was being discomforted i mean he went through the

ultimate appointed discomfort we were talking about like east winds and sun scorching and belly of the fish and so forth like none of that actually provided death for jonah he maybe felt like he was dying but he actually didn't die what was appointed for jesus was to go to the cross and bear all of our discomfort all of our shame all of our guilt all of our pain that comes from our sin he bore it on himself in ultimate discomfort and displeasure and god appointed his wrath to be poured out on jesus like that's the primary reason why in this moment of jonah's sin god

doesn't just kill him on the spot is because jesus died for him just like jesus died for you and he doesn't kill you right now for being mad at me for preaching what we're preaching he doesn't kill you because jesus died for you he broke his body and he shed his blood for you so that you would see his grace so that you would see his mercy and that you would receive his love and his forgiveness to change you and transform you like it's a love of god to not let you stay who you were but to make you who you are now in him

that is love and so right now the what god has called us to do as often as we do it as it says in first corinthians 11 is to remember the sacrifice of jesus for it is the fuel that drives all of our comfort all of our christianity all of our joy hinges upon his sacrifice and what he has offered up in his life and his death and his resurrection so let this be a feast for your soul so that when god asks do you do well you're able to say in that moment i do well by accepting jesus and what he has done for

me and letting jesus be the very bread and life of my soul so this is a feast that's not just remembering bread and juice this is a feast where we are literally partaking of jesus's life death and resurrection to fuel us on our daily lives because we are in the already but not yet and we need fuel we need to live off of jesus and jesus alone so let this be a feast for your soul to encourage you let's worship now as we partake the darkness came the glory to praise the father praise the son praises [Music] the key [Music] to redeem the whole creation

you did not despise the cross for even in your suffering the other side knowing this was our salvation jesus [Music] [Music] three [Music] praise forever to the king [Music] is [Music] and the angel stood in all [Music] was [Music] i am is for the love of jesus christ who is resurrected [Music] three [Music] [Music] oh praise the father praise the son praise the spirit [Music] praise forever [Music] of kings lord we thank you for this morning we thank you for our community and our church that you've blessed us with lord we thank you that you are good and your goodness allows us to be in

community with each other and be in relationship with you lord we pray that as we concluded our jonah series lord that we would continue to remember your steadfast love and your faithful persistence of jonah and i pray that that would be just one of the many lessons that we can take out of this that you are unrelenting in your goodness and your faithfulness to us and so we love you and we thank you lord i pray that today would be a day of rest and um we would just rest in you and rest in your goodness lord we love you it's in your name we

pray amen you guys can go and have a seat just a couple