Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Turn to the book of Jonah. Correct?
[00:00:05] Yes.
[00:00:07] All right.
[00:00:10] Says God is. Well, the title of the sermon is With God. I think I changed it from your changed my grammar with God. There is only plan A on your outline. It says, there's only plan A with God.
[00:00:23] And we'll look at that plan thought. The thought that came to mind.
[00:00:28] That God only has one plan, doesn't he?
[00:00:32] It's a perfect plan. And we are a part of that plan. And it's only one. So God is perfect in all his ways and plans. And when we. When we, all of us, by God's grace, are brought into his kingdom.
[00:00:47] We not only have a new life, which is wonderful.
[00:00:50] We also have been given a new, single, uncomplicated purpose and plan.
[00:00:58] To know, to love and to follow Him.
[00:01:01] That's it.
[00:01:03] We're done. We'll pray, and then we can. We can go.
[00:01:07] He doesn't make it very difficult, does he?
[00:01:10] But it is a. Sometimes a very difficult task. As we see in Jonah, the difficulty. He had to do the one thing that God had called him to do.
[00:01:22] And we'll look at that passage. And we heard two weeks ago in chapter two.
[00:01:28] We're kind of past that now when Jonah realized of his need. And we'll start in verse. I think it was verse six in chapter two. We'll read that.
[00:01:38] And then we'll kind of jump into the result in chapter three and read that. Then we will move on.
[00:01:47] While he was in the belly of this fish. Humongous fish, it says, I went down into the land whose bars close upon me forever.
[00:01:58] That's a pretty dark place, isn't it?
[00:02:02] The bars closed upon me forever.
[00:02:06] What's your next word there? Mine says, yet. What does yours say?
[00:02:12] Same thing yet.
[00:02:14] But I always like that but. All right. It's always things are crazy, but. Then there's a but. But God, right?
[00:02:21] And we see this here.
[00:02:23] It says, yet you. God brought up my life from the pit.
[00:02:28] That's a huge turnaround, isn't it?
[00:02:31] But God, isn't there a song we sing? But God. It's a great song. But God, in the midst of whatever is going bad.
[00:02:41] And we have horribly failed.
[00:02:44] And as we sung a couple songs and as we saw testimony. But God is always faithful.
[00:02:51] He's never going to deviate from his plan.
[00:02:56] He's immutable. He doesn't change.
[00:02:59] And we see that here with Jonah. Yet you brought me up to life from the pit. O Lord, my God.
[00:03:08] Let me jump down to verse one of chapter three. So he has this.
[00:03:14] I'm not going to say second chance, okay?
[00:03:18] He has an interaction with God who is faithful. I think that's a better way of looking this. Because we are not always so faithful, are we?
[00:03:27] We tend to deviate.
[00:03:29] We tend to go other directions. We tend to do what we want to do in the moment because we think we know the right thing to do.
[00:03:38] But God always has a way to intervene and to get our attention on who really is God.
[00:03:45] We like to play God, but God likes to show us who really is in control and who is sovereign.
[00:03:51] And so we see this again here, verse one. Then after this interaction, after this death, it's like facing death, like forever. I mean, if you're in the belly of a fish, that's it, you are done.
[00:04:04] There's no getting over this. I think as Pastor Duba talked about, your skin is starting to break down already.
[00:04:11] You're a God. You are going to die yet God.
[00:04:19] But God steps in, and what does he do?
[00:04:24] He continues his plan. Verse 1. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. Three days journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Has the message changed?
[00:04:56] The same message that God intended, right?
[00:04:59] And this is God saying this through Jonah.
[00:05:03] And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth. From the greatest of them to the least of them.
[00:05:12] The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he and he issued a proclamation and published through the Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles. Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
[00:05:44] Who knows, God may turn and relentless and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.
[00:05:55] When God saw what they did, how they turned from their ways, evil ways, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them.
[00:06:06] And he did not do it.
[00:06:09] Father God, we thank you for your Word. Thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for this example that we have of life, of the man you called and how you used him in a great and mighty way. Father, I pray that as we look through this Lord, your Holy Spirit, that is already working and active in each one of our hearts in different ways and different levels and different means, Father, that today we would be changed, renewed, encouraged to continue to pursue you and to be obedient to you. Father, we Lord, we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:06:46] All right, so it's not the first point. But the question is because we said to know our purpose, uncomplicated, simple purpose and plan is to know, to love and to follow him.
[00:07:02] And the question is, why should we be confident in following Jesus? Why is there confidence in following Him? Not in ourselves, but why is there confidence in us through Christ?
[00:07:13] And the first point is very easy.
[00:07:16] Because why God is faithful because that is who he is.
[00:07:22] And we see that he's faithful in this point with Jonah, even when we are not faithful, God is always faithful. Correct?
[00:07:31] And you think about in the history of humanity, how many faithful people, how many perfectly faithful people have God had the privilege to work with in the history of time?
[00:07:46] That's the question.
[00:07:49] Which one, Barry?
[00:07:51] Who?
[00:07:52] Jesus, right out of all humanity.
[00:07:56] And think about what God has accomplished in the last five, 6,000 years, wherever you want to say, what has he accomplished through imperfect people like us?
[00:08:08] Some pretty great things, right?
[00:08:10] And even Jesus said to the disciples, even after he left. And the promise as we saw in John as that once I leave, you're going to do what you're going to do, even greater things.
[00:08:21] Even though you're imperfect, you're unfaithful, you're self serving, you're whatever you want to call us, sometimes God can still use us, correct?
[00:08:33] That's you in the seat, right? Today you may think, well, how can God, I am not that good.
[00:08:40] Maybe just this morning I failed miserably, God, but yet God still has a plan for you.
[00:08:49] And we're going to look at what that plan is. But he is still capable. Why? Because he's God to use us. Because he is.
[00:08:59] And we see this in the first verse, the Lord came back to him.
[00:09:05] The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, and we'll get to there.
[00:09:11] And the fact is that just as our Lord chose Jonah, because it wasn't Jonah, I mean, this whole book of Jonah is about who.
[00:09:19] It's about God, isn't it?
[00:09:21] It's about God's Work through. Through a man.
[00:09:25] You could put your name right there and, you know, have, you know, a God chosen person to write a book about you. Because it's all about God anyway. He's the one, the sovereign God working through you. Correct.
[00:09:41] And if he can do it through a man like Jonah, of course he can do it through us.
[00:09:47] Because it's God's choosing, it's God's sovereignty, his providence, and how he works in this world.
[00:09:54] And we first look, you know, and yes, at first, like Jonah, we often run from the word when the word of God comes to us.
[00:10:02] I mean, look at. I mean, Lindsay, the word of God came to her and she didn't like, run to him right away, did she?
[00:10:11] Did God just say, I'm sorry, just kick you to the side? No, God continued to pursue her, didn't he?
[00:10:20] And it's a wonderful thing that God is always the one who pursues.
[00:10:24] Because we don't have a tendency to pursue. Like the hymn says, we have a tendency to wander, don't we? Even as Christians, we have a tendency to wander.
[00:10:35] And God still pursues us. He chooses us.
[00:10:40] And just as the Lord was faithful in pursuing Jonah here and his word came to him a second time, he does the same for you and I.
[00:10:51] And you notice when he comes back to Jonah after he's been in the belly, and Jonah acknowledges the fact that it's from God that he has been given life. And he says at the very end of chapter two, verse nine, salvation belongs to the Lord. It's his doing.
[00:11:08] God is the God of salvation.
[00:11:12] And there's nothing we do to bring about that. He had no hope whatsoever to come back to life, to get through this by being vomited back out onto the beach, right? That's the only hope he had.
[00:11:28] And God made that happen.
[00:11:32] And so God doesn't just start off by guilting Jonah of his failures. And what's crazy, it's like it's opposite of us. Because when we interact with people, our first thing is to make them feel bad.
[00:11:45] You can't do that. You're a horrible person. We judge them, we accuse them. But God doesn't do that. He doesn't start off. He basically just let's pick up where we left off. Jonah, I'm the one in charge.
[00:12:02] I'm the one with the message.
[00:12:04] I'm the one that wants to save these people.
[00:12:07] I'm just going to use you.
[00:12:10] I just want you to be obedient and love me enough to do what I ask you to do.
[00:12:15] Once God chooses us. He will not dismiss us or kick us to the curb, will He?
[00:12:20] We are His.
[00:12:23] What's sad is we as his followers, imitators of Christ sometimes tend to kick people to the curb, don't we?
[00:12:30] We give up on them.
[00:12:33] Fortunately, for our sake, we're not all God, right? Then we'd be in a bad place.
[00:12:39] But God doesn't do that, for he has some wonderful uses for us and for you. We are his vessels of good purpose.
[00:12:47] We are new creations created before the foundations of the world, created to do good works in his kingdom, that is every one of you.
[00:12:58] And he just wants you to follow him in that plan.
[00:13:04] He's come to us. Just as he chose Jonah to be a proclaimer of truth, to be an imitator of Christ, so that the world would know who God is and have that relationship with Him.
[00:13:15] If you look at this word came, you go back to verse one, and it says it's the same exact thing in chapter one or chapter three. Verse one is the same as chapter one. The Word of the Lord came to Jonah. And that word came is important. It means it's to come, but. And to come and to follow. For him to follow. It's almost talking about Jonah. It is talking about Jonah. To follow and to quit oneself.
[00:13:46] So it's kind of like the call.
[00:13:48] And this word came and call can be very interchangeable. And once someone calls you, as in Jesus, what did Jesus call us to do once we receive His Word?
[00:14:02] To deny ourself, to pick up our cross and to follow Him.
[00:14:09] And for all of us here, that was. And the point is, in this whole passage, just ignore the whole thing with Nineveh. What does God really want from Jonah?
[00:14:24] To quit himself and to follow Him.
[00:14:29] Has that changed Till today, our primary call from God is to quit serving and worshiping ourself and follow Him.
[00:14:42] That's it, you guys, that is our call.
[00:14:47] We don't have to worry about anything else in life, really, because God will provide everything else. If we just be committed to quitting ourself and following Him.
[00:14:57] And that's what that word means here.
[00:15:01] Our primary call is to follow Jesus and by one degree after one degree, to become more like Him.
[00:15:10] If that's all we did and worried about, we would be in a good shape. Because everything else is going to come from that.
[00:15:17] If we dedicate our lives to knowing God, to being in His Word, to hunger for His Word, to have His Word renew our minds and be the light of our life. And every step of the day we be by His Word, then we would not have to worry about anything else in the world.
[00:15:33] He will provide the job.
[00:15:35] He will provide everything you need.
[00:15:41] If we would just focus on our primary purpose in life.
[00:15:48] We don't have to worry about the specifics anymore, the where's and the whens in the hows. Because God will take care of that.
[00:15:57] So this book, this I think the entirety of this book of Jonah reminds us of our calling is always to God Himself first.
[00:16:11] And once we answer that call, he will provide you with a plethora of opportunities to serve him, to minister and to proclaim His Word.
[00:16:21] And he will provide the means and the where's for that to happen.
[00:16:25] He has called this to Himself.
[00:16:29] And Jesus prayed this for his disciples in John 17:3.
[00:16:35] And he says, basically, this is life. This is eternal life. This is salvation, that they know you, God. This is what he prayed, and this is eternal life. That they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
[00:16:52] What does it take to know God?
[00:16:55] A whole lot of intentional pursuit.
[00:17:00] To read, to listen to him and to talk back to Him. To pursue this relationship, this personal relationship that God wants from every one of us.
[00:17:11] This call starts with Jesus who says, follow me.
[00:17:15] Walking in his direction after his steps leads to Christlikeness. Is what he desires to become more like Him.
[00:17:26] God's call is perfect, and he makes no mistakes in whom he calls.
[00:17:31] And there's no second guess of why he calls and for what he calls people to. God doesn't make mistakes. When he does, he does it right the first time.
[00:17:42] We're the ones who always get it the first time.
[00:17:47] But he's always there, waiting, like the Father and the Prodigal Son, waiting for the return.
[00:17:56] God is waiting for us to say, yes, God, you are the God of salvation. You are God, not Me.
[00:18:08] For most everyone here, by God's saving mercy and grace, we have had the word of the Lord come to us, speaking to us, saying, come, deny. Pick up your cross and follow me.
[00:18:21] And in doing so, bringing glory to his wonderful name.
[00:18:25] And once he has shown us such favor, he will continue to pursue us and use us for his glory.
[00:18:31] Because Paul tells us that the work that he began at salvation, he continues that same work in your life.
[00:18:38] And we are to intentionally pursue God until we are all just moving toward together, to the likeness of Christ.
[00:18:47] He doesn't stop working. He doesn't stop pursuing. He doesn't stop and change plans for us.
[00:18:54] The original plan was the relationship with him. And that Plan does not change for anybody here.
[00:19:00] The earthly things do. Our jobs change, our locations change, our family changes things. But our primary call will never change. That is Plan A.
[00:19:12] And we're all called to that same plan.
[00:19:17] And God gives us some very specific things sometimes to do. And he may call us to do those things and use us in his kingdom. And we say, okay, God.
[00:19:28] And that's what we see here with Jonah, that he has called him and. And he belongs to God. He's a chosen person of Israel. He belongs to God. And God is. I have something for you to do.
[00:19:40] Just like every one of us.
[00:19:44] I have a job. I have a ministry for you to do.
[00:19:47] And while you're doing that, doesn't matter what it is, while you're doing that, I'm receiving all the glory because I am your God.
[00:20:09] Even when he calls us to this very specific task profession, it is always an expression, an extension of God, who God is.
[00:20:17] God is calling Jonah to go to Nineveh is an expression of God's passion for the nations, his passion for cities, his passion for the world to be restored to himself.
[00:20:29] Think about where you're at today that God has placed you there because he has a passion for the people that you interact with every single day.
[00:20:40] He has a passion to restore that relationship with them, to be with them forever, just like he is with you.
[00:20:48] So don't think that where you're at today is a mistake.
[00:20:53] Don't think the loss of a job was a mistake so that you get another job where God wants you to be.
[00:21:01] Because every place that you are is not by your own doing.
[00:21:08] We may have made a mistake somewhere and got ourselves fired for whatever reason.
[00:21:15] Can God still use that mistake and put you somewhere else?
[00:21:19] Yes.
[00:21:22] You can't forget the providence and the sovereignty in God in this book and in our lives.
[00:21:30] God has called you and provided for you for a ministry.
[00:21:34] And we're all ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[00:21:38] He's all called you and provided a place to live, a means to earn money, to provide for your family and for yourself, a love for certain activities that enables you to be again in places where nobody else could be, that you could be that light and that proclaimer of truth.
[00:21:56] He's called us to relationships.
[00:21:59] But the question is, what are you doing with the call that God has given you?
[00:22:06] What are you doing with the gospel that God has given you to be a minister of?
[00:22:13] Where has God placed you to proclaim the truth on any given day?
[00:22:22] It was given to Jonah. But what Did Jonah do it the first time he ran? He did not. He kind of like. No. Like hot potato. No, I don't want this.
[00:22:31] He failed miserably the first time, didn't he?
[00:22:36] Did that change God's plan?
[00:22:38] No.
[00:22:40] And we have to remember for ourselves when we fail, it doesn't change God's original plan for you.
[00:22:48] His love for you.
[00:22:50] His desire to have a relationship with you.
[00:22:53] His desire for you to love him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
[00:23:04] Just as God called Jonah to a life and a certain ministry, it was God who was faithful and made sure that the call was successful.
[00:23:12] Jonah really had nothing to do with it. Besides being obedient and saying those five words.
[00:23:20] Don't ever think that your failures will thwart the plans of God for your life.
[00:23:26] You and your life are his plan A.
[00:23:29] He doesn't have a plan B for you.
[00:23:33] We sometimes dictate a longer way to get done with plan A, don't we?
[00:23:40] I mean, in God's mind, it's like it's a straight line here to there.
[00:23:45] Like that old cartoon for your older generation. Family circle, right? And one of the children, I'm going to go do something. And like, it goes all over the place, right?
[00:23:55] It's like it takes forever because we're always making our own decisions where we want to go.
[00:24:01] But God has that straight line in line for us.
[00:24:06] And it's us who dictate the course we take.
[00:24:13] Do you think God was surprised by Jonah's flight to Tarshish?
[00:24:20] No.
[00:24:21] You think he was just. I mean, how can you be disappointed when you already know?
[00:24:27] It's kind of hard, isn't it?
[00:24:29] And God knew that. And he knew what was going to happen next.
[00:24:38] So basically, Jonah is offered God's plan a second time.
[00:24:43] Same plan, based on his confusion and indecision. On our own as well. We're offered a second time and a third time to keep pursuing God.
[00:24:53] Even a blatant running from God doesn't thwart God's plans.
[00:24:57] He's already there to meet you, right? You can run as far you can think you're running as far as you can.
[00:25:02] Or Jonah thought that, how far away from God can I go? And when he got there, where was God?
[00:25:09] He was already there, waiting for him.
[00:25:13] We can't run and we can't hide from God.
[00:25:18] We could indulge and put a lot of distractions and noise in our life. Where we can't hear him, we can close up his word, but he is always there.
[00:25:33] In fact, God and does use these things to prime us for growth in our calling to him.
[00:25:40] Everything that Jonah had gone through has prepared him to walk toward God's calling.
[00:25:45] If you can survive three days in acid, you can survive three days in Nineveh.
[00:25:52] That's what happened, right?
[00:25:55] It strengthened his faith in God.
[00:26:00] And when God said, this is going to happen, then he understood it quite clearly.
[00:26:07] This is not an okay for our disobedience, but rather the glory of how God can restore us to what we need to be doing.
[00:26:18] And we're all in the same spot, situation, long first point, I think we. We got to understand that, because I think sometimes we focus on the extra stuff, when in reality God just wants us to focus on our relationship with Him.
[00:26:39] That's it.
[00:26:42] Sometimes even church can be a distraction.
[00:26:47] I can serve doing 15,000 different things at church, and I'm feeling really good about myself. But what is your relationship with God like?
[00:26:54] Are you pursuing him, or are you pursuing the activity?
[00:27:02] God just wants us to pursue him first.
[00:27:06] That's what Jesus said, right?
[00:27:08] Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, seek the holiness and the righteousness of Christ.
[00:27:17] Then we'll just blaze through this rest.
[00:27:22] Because when that's our foundation and the next point is the insurmountable work, which is maybe a bad point, I don't know.
[00:27:30] But when you're pursuing him first, is there really any insurmountable work that's not rhetorical? Think about it.
[00:27:45] If we're pursuing God first, seeking his kingdom, his righteousness first, is there any work that is insurmountable?
[00:27:53] No, we make it insurmountable in our own mind. Correct.
[00:28:01] It could be a conversation with somebody that is like, well, that's gonna be a tough conversation. That is not gonna go well.
[00:28:08] And in your own mind, that is an insurmountable conversation. But if you know you're doing it by the grace of God and for his will and for his glory, and for the help of the other person, their interest of the other person. That insurmountable work does become a lot less, doesn't it?
[00:28:25] So if we're focused on that relationship, we can do things that the world deems insurmountable, and most often, that we often claim to be insurmountable as well.
[00:28:41] And God says, arise of arise. Go to Nineveh, that great city. He has to remind them, that huge city, and call out against its message. That I tell you.
[00:28:54] So what does Jonah do this time?
[00:28:57] Unlike the first time, maybe he's a new creation now.
[00:29:04] Maybe we'll see next week.
[00:29:06] But Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of God.
[00:29:11] Now, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days journey in breadth. So exactly the same description we're giving in chapter one.
[00:29:24] The only difference I see here is you go back to verse six, when he acknowledges, I went down to the land whose bars are closed upon me forever. Yet you, God, brought up my life from the pit. O Lord, my God, maybe there's a glimmer of hope for this city, that if God can spew me out and vomit me out of a fish after three days, maybe perhaps he's powerful enough to save this city. It's just a horrible, wicked, nasty city.
[00:30:03] We probably can't even imagine or compare what any city today would be like Nineveh.
[00:30:11] The only thing that comes to mind that compare it to would be like Sodom and Gomorrah.
[00:30:17] But here God is choosing to show some grace and mercy to these people in Nineveh.
[00:30:24] Nothing they did deserved this.
[00:30:28] The call didn't change.
[00:30:31] When we have failure in life, does Jesus change our call of denying ourself?
[00:30:36] This becomes greater, doesn't it? Because usually when we fail, we're not denying ourselves, we're just all prideful.
[00:30:44] But he's calling us to deny ourself again, picking up our cross. Let's go, let's try again.
[00:30:54] And when we fail, he'll pick us up. We repent, we acknowledge it, we pray, deny ourselves, realize that we do have the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish the task that God has given us.
[00:31:10] For us, it sometimes seems to be insurmountable work to imitate Christ.
[00:31:16] We can do it here easily, right?
[00:31:18] It's easy to imitate Christ at church sometimes.
[00:31:22] But he's calling us to imitate Christ even in the most difficult times in life, the death in the family, the loss of a job, the relationship that is like on the fringe.
[00:31:40] Let's go back to what he's called us to do and to imitate Him.
[00:31:47] But we got to remember that it's not us trying to muster up enough life, our righteous life. We can't muster up enough, can we?
[00:31:57] We have to remember it is Christ who lives in us.
[00:32:01] It is his righteousness that has been imputed on us, to live each and every day to his glory.
[00:32:08] That's what we sometimes forget, that we've been clothed, right? God has placed, has wrapped the clothing on us, the perfect attire to sit down at his table. We have that and we are that today, aren't we?
[00:32:24] The Psalmist David said that God has prepared a place for us in front of our enemies, a table to eat, to dine with him. In any aspect of what's going on in our world, whatever problem is being thrown at you by the attacker, by Satan, God has said, you know what? You can have peace right there and dine with me, because I have first made you right to do that, and I want you there with me.
[00:32:52] For Jonah, the call was the same.
[00:32:58] Sometimes thinkers say, God, can you just give us a break?
[00:33:03] God didn't change the city, did he? He didn't say, well, let's go to this little city that takes like a couple minutes to get through.
[00:33:10] Say it one time and then you're done, buddy. No, he says, let's go back to that city.
[00:33:15] The call had not changed what he wanted him to do.
[00:33:19] And he says it again the second time.
[00:33:23] You think about, what is Jonah compared to Nineveh?
[00:33:28] I mean, it's just a man who was from Nazareth, right? He was like a nobody.
[00:33:37] So they thought of people from Nazareth. There's a bunch of nobodies, and here he is going to go face this city.
[00:33:46] Some people call it the zenith of cultural civilization today.
[00:33:52] It was also a very brutal and violent city.
[00:33:56] And what impact could a little obscure Jonah possibly have? Do we have those thoughts sometimes of, what can I do?
[00:34:03] What's the mistake in that? In that sense, what can I do?
[00:34:09] Who are we leaving out?
[00:34:11] God? The Holy Spirit?
[00:34:14] So the next time you're faced with an insurmountable task, instead of saying, well, how can I get this done?
[00:34:22] They say, all right, Holy Spirit, let's go. Lead the way.
[00:34:29] That's when great things can happen.
[00:34:31] We tend to minimalize the impact that God can have because we try to control everything.
[00:34:38] But living by the power of the Spirit opens things up really big, doesn't it?
[00:34:49] Often, if not always, God calls us into situations and places beyond our own abilities so that we have to depend upon him.
[00:35:00] Jonah lacks spiritual maturity and influence. I mean, for all means, like he was just a baby Christian, correct?
[00:35:06] Just vomited out of this fish.
[00:35:10] And yet he was going to cause a revival in a massive, nasty city by allowing the Holy Spirit and God to work through him, knowing that God is the one who is in control, that God called them to a place where he was weak, vulnerable and exposed and very needy.
[00:35:35] So that God, or so that Jonah would know and could know God's strength and power.
[00:35:43] He was meek. He had to become meek. He had to be humbled in that fish because when we are humbled and we are meek, God gets all the glory, doesn't he?
[00:35:53] Because we're saying our life, what we do, is based on God, not anything that I can muster up.
[00:36:02] And we tend to just work on what we can muster up.
[00:36:06] And a lot of us have a lot God is gifted with, right? I mean, it's crazy. God has gifted us a lot of things in different places, and we rely upon those gifts and we kind of own them. Like, this is what I can do.
[00:36:20] And we forget this is what God has given us to do in his kingdom.
[00:36:27] Anything that happens in Nineveh isn't going to be because of Jonah's stature.
[00:36:33] He is small. The city is ginormous.
[00:36:37] But you know what? God is so much bigger than that city, isn't He?
[00:36:43] God is the maker of every heart in that city.
[00:36:48] God knows the mind of every person in that city.
[00:36:52] God has the power to change every heart in that city. Correct.
[00:36:58] He's the one that says to Ezekiel that I will rip out that heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. Right?
[00:37:07] I will give them my spirit.
[00:37:11] I will give them my heart.
[00:37:14] Only God can make those claims.
[00:37:19] And just as Jonah pales in comparison to the city, his message is equally small, even paltry.
[00:37:27] It's only five words in Hebrew again, those five words saying, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. That's it.
[00:37:44] But who's behind those five words?
[00:37:47] God's behind them.
[00:37:48] The Holy Spirit is moving with those five words.
[00:37:53] God did not change a plan. It's still plan A.
[00:37:57] We gotta realize with this, that following God, it's an unfolding story, isn't it? Would you want to know 40 years ago, if you're that old, what's going to happen? What you'd have to go through where you are today.
[00:38:10] If you knew every decision you made, every bad decision you made, everything that took you to different parts of your life, would you want to know that ahead of time?
[00:38:19] That's scary.
[00:38:22] You wouldn't get out of bed.
[00:38:25] You wouldn't leave your house.
[00:38:29] But God unfolds it as we are capable for it to unfold for us.
[00:38:35] We don't get all the details of how things are going to go.
[00:38:39] We don't have enough faith for that right now.
[00:38:44] We get enough to be faithful in the present. And God knows how much he can divulge to us and how much he knows we can handle. Right?
[00:38:57] You can't know what it means to follow Jesus five years from now.
[00:39:02] That might scare you too much.
[00:39:06] Even a year, a month?
[00:39:09] What about tomorrow?
[00:39:13] What can we be assured of about tomorrow?
[00:39:16] We may not be here, but we can be sure that God will be with us wherever we go tomorrow.
[00:39:28] Jesus Himself said, today has enough worries of its own. Don't worry about it.
[00:39:33] Just like I mentioned earlier, just seek me the kingdom, my righteousness, and I will sustain you.
[00:39:41] And as Brother James said in James chapter four, look here, you who say, today or tomorrow, we're going a certain town to stay there a year. We'll do business there and make a profit. How do you know what your life will be tomorrow?
[00:39:55] Your life is like the morning fog. It's here a little while, then gone.
[00:40:00] What you ought to say is, if the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.
[00:40:09] If the Lord wants me to wake up tomorrow, what's going to happen?
[00:40:13] I'm going to wake up tomorrow. If the Lord doesn't want me to wake up tomorrow, I'm not going to wake up tomorrow. Do I have control over that?
[00:40:22] Besides eating a gallon of ice cream tonight? No, I don't.
[00:40:29] But we have to have that faith in God.
[00:40:34] Is God free to ask us what he wants to ask us to do?
[00:40:40] Can we control what God wants us to do?
[00:40:44] We can't.
[00:40:47] All we can do is to be faithful to him and respond to what we know of his desires for us. That's it.
[00:40:57] And trust Him.
[00:40:59] Next point. Because of that trust, we see the power of God's word. Verse 4.
[00:41:07] This is all he says. Jonah began to go into the city, going to the day's journey. And he called out, yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. That's it.
[00:41:17] By itself. You just read those. Those aren't very powerful.
[00:41:21] But it's God's word that's powerful. It's the same word that we're supposed to be reading every single time we have a chance, right? The same word that empowers us by his spirit to do the things that we think are insurmountable. It is God's word that dictates that.
[00:41:39] I was going to spend a lot of time on the word, the number 40, but we won't say why. 40. 40 days in the wilderness. 40 days in the desert.
[00:41:51] 40 years are wandering in the wilderness. Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights. 40, 40, 40.
[00:41:59] It basically comes down to.
[00:42:01] It's a time of basically just evaluating and examining yourself.
[00:42:09] So they had 40 days to examine this message, and great things happen.
[00:42:20] What would be the outcome in 40 days?
[00:42:25] Maybe they heard the story of Jonah, this guy who got vomited out of this fish. If God can do that, he has the power to destroy us as well.
[00:42:43] They have 40 days. What will the outcome be?
[00:42:47] Will the 40 days lead to life beginning in a new way, or life being destroyed?
[00:42:55] It's almost like Jonah saying, destruction is coming your way, Nineveh.
[00:43:00] But that's not exactly what he says. He says nineveh shall be overthrown.
[00:43:07] I should have saved more time for this word here.
[00:43:11] Overthrown. The word for overthrown is kind of ambiguous here.
[00:43:17] Its basic meaning is to turn.
[00:43:20] Think about that. Right.
[00:43:22] In some context, it can mean to overturn, as it does when describing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. So it's the same word.
[00:43:31] And what happened to Sodom? Gomorrah?
[00:43:34] It was destroyed. Correct. We know that.
[00:43:37] But the word can also mean to turn around or transform, which is God's preference for Nineveh.
[00:43:45] The word here is hardly accidental, because in 40 days, Nineveh has two options.
[00:43:52] They can be overturned by God, like Sodom and Gomorrah, or their life can be turned around by God to follow him.
[00:44:03] So this word has that meaning.
[00:44:08] And I'm guessing they knew what this meaning was. We have a choice.
[00:44:12] God is saying we can become now. I don't know. I doubt if they knew about Sodom and Gomorrah. That was too far before them and they were a great city themselves. Perhaps. I don't know.
[00:44:24] But the idea of this God, of this man who calmed the sea and spewed out this man, that this God could either turn us around or could basically destroy us.
[00:44:38] And we see that they chose the transformation.
[00:44:43] Even Jesus championed their. Their faith. The people in Matthew, chapter 1241. The people of Nineveh will stand up against this generation on Judgment Day and condemn it. For they repented of their sins at the preaching of Jonah.
[00:45:02] They realized God opened their eyes to the reality of their sin against him, and they repented.
[00:45:10] Has he changed his ways today?
[00:45:14] That it is God, for anybody here has yet to say, yes, Jesus, it is God who will open your eyes, that you would realize that I have sinned. I have by my sin broken this relationship with God, and for it to be restored, I have to put my faith in him and trust him. That has not changed the passage that Pastor Duber read today, Ephesians 2, 4, 6.
[00:45:40] But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.
[00:45:53] It's only by God's grace that you have been saved.
[00:45:56] For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms.
[00:46:02] Because we are united with Christ Jesus.
[00:46:09] Same promise today.
[00:46:12] Was Nineveh a dead city? Were they spiritually dead?
[00:46:16] There was no life whatsoever.
[00:46:19] Reminds me of Ezekiel talking, taking him to the valley of the dry bones. There was dead. The dry bones were dead.
[00:46:27] There was no life there whatsoever. Correct.
[00:46:30] And what did God do?
[00:46:33] He brought flesh and muscle and organs, and he brought those dry bones to life.
[00:46:38] He did that to Nineveh by using those five words.
[00:46:43] Last point.
[00:46:46] Faith in God does not leave us wallowing in the mire.
[00:46:53] We'll just read it. We'll see what they did.
[00:46:56] Verses five through ten.
[00:46:58] And the people of Nineveh? What's it say there? Mine says believe God. What's yours say?
[00:47:03] Don't look up. Don't cheat. That's mine. What's your Bible say?
[00:47:08] Same thing. That's all it took us. Has anything changed from then to now?
[00:47:14] What provides us? Our salvation, our faith? Believing that Jesus Christ died for your sins.
[00:47:23] So because of that, they called the fury fast and put on sackcloth. From the greatest to them, to the least of them. The Word reached the king of Nineveh and arose from the throne. He arose from the throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.
[00:47:37] Then he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, by decree of the king and his nobles. Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything.
[00:47:48] Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
[00:48:00] Who knows? Maybe God will turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.
[00:48:09] Did God honor that repentance? Yes.
[00:48:13] When he saw that they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of disaster. And he had said that he would do to them.
[00:48:22] He saved them.
[00:48:25] An entire generation of people saved because of their faith in God.
[00:48:31] By his grace and the faith gifted to us, we too can have the understanding that our sin, our pride, has separated us from God.
[00:48:40] And we, like Nineveh, deserve the full penalty of that sin. Correct.
[00:48:45] But the next two. But God, just like Jonah in the belly. Yet God, he had Plan A for us from the very beginning of time.
[00:48:59] Our plan or his plan that our sins would be washed away and they'd be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
[00:49:07] Our plan is that we would repent from our evil ways.
[00:49:11] The plan he has for us is to be restored to relationship with him.
[00:49:16] The plan that he has so that our new life will bring glory to him.
[00:49:22] Let's pray.
[00:49:28] Heavenly Father, thank you for your sovereign grace, for your sovereign mercy, for your sovereign love for us.
[00:49:41] That you it is all about you, Father. I know that you're at work all the time. Thank you for that work that has saved many of us and the same work that is going to save others as well.
[00:49:57] Thank you for the work that you continue to do in our lives so that we may bring glory to you.
[00:50:05] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:50:08] Lord, we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.
