Running from God (Part 2) - Jonah 2

Good morning and uh welcome again to Orchard Hill.

I've over the years seen several times different studies done on what yields happiness in people's lives.

And the studies are varied, they talk about standard of living, quality of relationships, things like that, but every now and then a study will come out that will compare people of faith, people of particular kinds of faiths, and people who don't have faith, and talk about the quality of their lives.

I saw a recent study, it was Britain's Happiness Index, and it said something that I've seen in different studies over the years.

And what it said is that people who have a genuine Christian faith, not that they can totally measure genuineness, but in other words, where it's vibrant, it's an important part of their lives, and are involved in a local church, tend in Britain to be happier than people who are not involved in church or don't have a kind of personal faith, the personal Christian faith.

And as the article went on, it talked a little bit about why they believed that to be so.

And they said that probably part of it was that the people who had faith seemed to have a stronger relational network and were involved in a church, and they had the ability to weather the highs and lows of life, and they lived with a greater sense of purpose than people who didn't have faith.

And having seen this in different places over the years, there's a question that I always ask when I see it is is it really true?

And the reason I asked that question is probably the same reason you would ask the question, is you know people who have a vibrant kind of personal faith, who are involved in maybe a congregation or a local church who are miserable, right?

I mean, you know, you know some of those people.

Maybe you are those people, I'm not sure, but but you know a little bit about that.

And you know some people who are maybe detached from church, detached from kind of their own spiritual life, and they kind of take it or leave it.

It's not really central to who they are.

And you see them and they seem to have everything going their way.

They seem to be happy, and so you have to ask the question are those surveys accurate?

Now, certainly, uh statistically, they they may bear some resemblance, but I was thinking about that, and one of the advantages, I guess, of having been a pastor for a long time is that anytime I come to a passage, I've generally taught on it before at this point.

And so it speeds up my work a little bit.

And so I'm able to go back and look and say, what have I taught on this before?

So I uh we're in Jonah this week, and we're at Jonah chapter two.

So I went into my file and I found my last time I taught on this, and it was 1999.

So it's been a while since I've taught on Jonah chapter two.

And the way that I typically do my messages is I'll write and I'll think, I'll memorize, I'll do all kinds of things.

But be five, by the time I come to the weekend, it all ends up on a five by eight card.

It's kind of just like this, and that's what I carry with me, and I can kind of see it in my mind as I talk, and when I forget, I have to look down and be like, oh, what's there?

Uh but the reason I tell you that is in 1999, on the card that it was in Jonah 2, I had written six names on my card.

And what I was doing at the time, I was pastoring a smaller church in Michigan, and I would write down the names of people I would meet each weekend so that I could look at it the next weekend and try to greet people by name.

And so this was just kind of something I would do, and that way I'd just review it and I'd be like, hey, Joe, nice to see you again.

So there were six families or group people that I had met that that weekend.

And you know, here it's a little harder.

I I meet so many people, can't greet everybody, so so I don't write down your names.

Don't worry about that if you're a guest.

I don't do that anymore.

But but I did it then.

And uh you're like, that's creepy.

Um uh you know, when you're a small church, you do whatever you can to try to gain kind of people coming back.

But uh here's what was striking to me.

All six of the names were people who got engaged in the church, and I knew their families and kind of watched their families over some years.

And of those kind of families, three of them really made faith important and they stayed the course.

And today their families are are really doing fairly well.

It's not that they've had no crisis, they've had death, they've had substance issues, that they've had some things happen, but they have done really well overall, and three of the families.

The faith was kind of a take it or leave it, church was kind of uh a layer in their life, but it wasn't a part of the central fabric of their life.

And I can tell you, because I've watched those families, there has been disintegration, unhappiness, trauma.

In other words, just what I'm saying is that just one snapshot into my life as a pastor verifies the research that I'm talking about.

And here's what we're doing over these weeks.

We're in a series that we're calling Running from God.

And it's a series about the book of Jonah, and Jonah is a story about a man who was commanded to do one thing, to go to Nineveh and cry against it, but instead he went completely the other way to Tarshus, to get away from the presence of God.

That's what he did.

He tried to get as far away from God as he possibly could.

And in chapter one, we learn that there was a storm that God sent.

And he sent the storm as a way to chasten or to bring Jonah back.

And in chapter 1, verse 17, we see that Jonah was in a mess because he'd been swallowed by a big fish.

And the text says big fish, not whale.

And some of us get get stuck there, and we talked about this just a little bit last week, and just very quickly again, I'll just say this, and that is I don't struggle with it because once you acknowledge the idea that there's a God who created the world and holds the world in the palm of his hand, then believing that he could create a fish that's big enough to swallow a man and the man could survive for three days isn't that big of a miracle.

I mean, it's still a miracle.

But what happens is we get caught up in the fish story, and we fail to realize that this was really just a means to an end in the story.

This was God's Uber for Jonah.

I mean, that's what this was.

And so it isn't about the fish, but it's really about Jonah and ultimately about you, about me, and about our tendency to sometimes run from God.

And what we see when we come to chapter two is Jonah's realization that he was in a mess, that he had brought something on himself that was difficult because of his running from God, his disobedience to God.

And here's what we read, chapter two, verse one.

It says, From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord.

Now just listen to these words.

It says, In my distress, I called to the Lord, and he answers me.

So he says, I'm in distress.

From the deep in the realm of the dead, I called for help.

You listened to my cry.

You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me.

Again, the language here is of one just being engulfed in this storm.

And your waves and breakers swept over me.

He said, I've been banished from your sight.

And then he says, This, yet I again will look at your holy temple.

I'll look at your temple once again.

And the first thing that we see here about Jonah is that he was in a place where he had come to realize the depth of his need for God once again.

And one of the challenges in our culture, maybe one of your challenges, is that your life just goes along from day to day to day, whether you're a person of long-standing faith or a person who says, I'm not really sure where my faith is.

And sometimes you just go about day after day and not even realize your need for God.

There was a movie that came out a few years ago, and this will uh kind of show a little story about where I've been uh in terms of being a parent for years.

But the movie was called Wally.

And I don't know if any of you saw WALLY, but Wally was this movie about these kind of, I don't know if you'd call them people or what exactly they were, but but they became basically immobilized because they would live their whole life virtually through screens.

And the whole subplot of the movie was for those who realized how shallow their life had become by living virtually rather than living in reality, to try to help everybody else to kind of realize that they were living in a less than optimum place.

And part of the challenge that we have in life is realizing how desperately we actually need God.

And I think sometimes living in an affluent part of the world, the United States, living in an affluent part of the United States, what happens is we can live with a sense that says, I have everything taken care of.

If I get sick, I don't need God, I go to a doctor.

If I have some kind of an issue relationally, I don't need God, I go to a therapist.

If I have an issue with something that I'm struggling with, then I just kind of take care of it.

Now, don't get me wrong, we should go to doctors, we should go to therapists.

Some of us should go to therapists more than we do.

But what I'm saying is sometimes we solve every problem on our own instead of saying that this is something that I desperately need God to do.

And Jonah, when he comes here, notice, doesn't ask God to change his situation.

He simply comes to God.

Now there could be a couple reasons for this.

One is he could simply be at a place where he says, you know what, I don't even care anymore.

What I want, what I want most of all is God.

And this is in contrast to the sailors.

You see, the sailors in chapter one, when they came to God, what did they do?

They said, God, we'll come to you, we'll worship you, just deliver us from the storm.

And sometimes when we get in a storm, our tendency is to say, God, you take care of me, and then I'll turn to you.

Or I'll turn to you and then you take care of me.

Have any of you ever done that, found yourself in a mess, and then kind of come to God with a little bit of a bargaining approach, like, okay, now that I'm here, God, you take care of this, and then I'll worship you, I'll honor you, I'll really do the right thing.

But what does Jonah do here?

He instead just comes and says, God, I'm going to bend my knee, basically, to you, whether you deliver me or not.

Now, the reason I say there could be a couple things.

In verse 4, he says, Yet I will again look at your holy temple.

And in kind of the ancient world, kind of the idea of the temple was such a dominant idea that here he is in the belly of a fish saying, I still believe that you're going to deliver me.

That I'm going to actually encounter the good of worshiping you, God, once again.

But either way, what really matters here is that the storm had caused Jonah to come to a place of realization.

Now, I need to clarify one thing here, and that is sometimes storms come into our life because of our rebellion.

Because we've been running from God.

But sometimes storms come into our lives that have nothing to do with our rebellion.

And the reason I say this is because in Job, which is another Old Testament book, Job, who was in the way that the story is told, was completely in the right with God when the storm came into his life.

And in fact, the text says that he was righteous, he was upright, that he feared God.

And it makes a point of that, right?

At the beginning of Job chapter 1, and then all this catastrophe comes, and in fact, a storm comes that takes the life of his children.

Job 1 · chapter mention

And so if we just read Jonah, we might be tempted to think that storms that come into our lives are always a result of our disobedience or our running from God.

But when we read Job, we might be tempted to think that storms are never a result of our disobedience.

What we need to do is understand biblically that both are true.

That sometimes we have storms because we've brought them on ourselves, and sometimes we have storms because we live in a fallen, broken world and storms happen.

But either way, what happens when we have a storm is we need to be able to see that God is using it not to pay us back or to get us back, but but to draw us to Himself.

Because they show us how desperately we need God.

And if you've ever been in a storm that was scary and you realized how little control you have over the elements, if the elements want to assert themselves in your life, you realize that you can't control as much as you think you can control.

And your storm may not be a physical storm, it may not be a literal storm, but but it could be a storm of circumstances in your life where all of a sudden you said, I thought I could control this, I thought I could work on this.

And what it's doing is it's highlighting your need to say, what I need more than anything is to be aligned with a God who can control things that I can't control.

But I like to live, and maybe you like to live, with the illusion that I can control things, that I can take care of things, that I can make things the way I need them to be.

And by the way, when we kind of run from God, it isn't always big things.

Sometimes it's little things that are just a way to kind of numb some of the deadness that we sometimes feel in our lives.

For example, some of us will binge watch television.

It's easier than it's ever been.

Because you don't have to even line everything up on your DVR.

You can just now kind of say, what do you want to watch?

And you can spend three, four hours watching something that leads to the next day.

But here's the question: how many times do you get done spending three or four hours binge watching and say, wow, do I feel refreshed and alive and good?

Now I'm not against binge watching.

I plan to do some of it this summer myself, but but what I'm saying is that is that sometimes it's an escape.

It's a way to say, I don't want to deal with the monotony or the difficulty of my life, so I'm going to binge watch.

Some of us, it'll be internet, it'll be shopping, it'll be some kind of an activity that we just indulge in to kind of deaden whatever it is that we're feeling.

For some, it might be pornography, for some it might be fantasy, for some, it might be alcohol or drug use, for some it might be envy, but either way, what whatever's happening in us is that we're saying, I just want to get away from kind of the reality of my life for a little while.

One author put it like this He says, When your soul is starving, you are susceptible to pleasures, much the way that a starving person is susceptible to any kind of food.

In other words, what happens is we just want to feel good sometimes.

And if we're not rightly connected to God, what we'll do is we'll try to find anything that'll make us feel good right now, and it'll be a substitute for actually knowing and experiencing God.

And wherever there's there's a smoke like that, there's a deeper fire, there's a deeper issue.

So here's what we read happened with Jonah, verse 5 of chapter 2.

The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me, seaweed was wrapped around my head, the roots of the mountain, I sank down, to the roots of the mountain, I sank down.

The earth beneath me was uh barred me in forever.

But you, Lord, my God, brought my life up from the pit.

When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose up to you, to your holy temple.

And then he says this, verse 8 Those who cling to worthless idols, turn away from God's love for them.

This is the NIV 2011 version, the older version used to say, those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

And what that's really talking about is the fact that for some of us, maybe storms aren't where our realization's going to come from.

Because for some of us, we'll do such a good job managing our life and getting kind of the things that we want, that our realization that we really need God will only come when we realize that we've elevated something to be more important than God.

It's what Jonah calls an idol.

So when he says, those who cling to idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs, what he's doing is he's saying, for some of us, what our kind of life will be is we will say, This is what I need more than anything, and we'll devote our life to that thing, and we may not have any storms, and as a result, we'll end up missing grace altogether.

Martin Luther put it like this: he said, To whatever you give your heart and entrust your being, that I say is really your God.

And here's the danger.

If you're successful at keeping that one thing, that idol, to be okay in your life, you may go through life thinking that you don't need God or that you don't even want God because you're afraid that God will mess with your idol.

So, for example, if you have some success and success is your idol in your field of choice, you'll say, I'm gonna do anything I can to keep having success because that's what I need most of all.

If you feel that a relationship is most important to you, you'll do whatever it takes to have that relationship stay most important, even a good relationship, a healthy relationship, and you'll miss the grace that could be yours.

Sometimes we can hear messages from places we don't expect.

Uh, there was a message that was given, kind of a sermon almost, a few years ago by Jim Carrey at the Golden Globes.

Take a look.

Thank you.

I am two-time Golden Globe winner, Jim Carrey.

You know, when I go to sleep at night, I'm not just a guy going to sleep.

I'm two-time Golden Globe winner, Jim Carrey, going to get some well-needed shut-eye.

And when I dream, I don't just dream any old dream.

No, sir.

I dream about being three-time Golden Globe winning Dr.

Jim Carrey.

Because then I would be a number.

And I could stop this terrible story.

Well, when my numb ultimately won't fulfill me.

But these are important, these awards.

I don't want you to think that just because if you blew up our solar system alone, you wouldn't be able to find us or any of human history with the naked eye.

But from our perspective, this is huge.

Do you know what Jonah is saying is actually almost the same thing that Jim Carrey is saying?

See, Jim Carrey in his humorous way is saying, we're all here, you all act like this is so important, and if I'm three-time Golden Globe winner, Jim Carrey, then I'll be enough.

And did you see even the uncomfortable laughter of some of the people in the audience, Denzel Washington kind of sitting there almost looking like, yeah, you're right, this seems important, but it isn't.

Because you won't be enough when you're three-time a Golden Globe winner, Jim Carrey.

And Jonah's saying the same thing.

He's saying, if you cling to worthless idols, you'll forfeit the grace, the actual grace of having a life that is centered on the knowledge that God loves you through Jesus Christ, because you'll still believe that the only way you're enough is if you look a certain way, you achieve enough, you have the right relationships, you live in the right place, that things go the way you want them to go.

Here's how C.S.

Lewis wrote about this.

He called it the desire to be in the inner ring.

And he said it's a lifelong desire for acceptance in something, basically.

And here's how he describes it.

He says, the desire which draws us into the inner ring is another matter.

A thing may be morally neutral, and yet the desire for that thing may be dangerous.

See, an idol isn't necessarily a bad thing, it can be a good thing that we've made ultimate.

So Lewis says it may be morally neutral, but it can be dangerous.

He says, unless you take measures to prevent it, this desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life.

From the moment you enter your profession until you are too old to care.

If you do nothing about it, if you drift with the stream, you will in fact be an inner ringer.

I don't say that you'll be a successful one.

That may, that's as may be.

But whatever the by pining or moping, whether by pining or moping outside the rings that you can never enter, or by passing triumphantly further and further in, one way or another, you will be that kind of a man.

As long as you are governed by that desire, you will never get what you want.

You are trying to peel in an onion, and if you succeed, there will be nothing left.

And until you conquer the fear of being an outsider and Outsider, you will remain.

So C.S.

Lewis, Jim Carrey, Jonah.

Well, they all say the same thing.

So it must be true.

You see, what will happen is if you have something that is ultimately more important to you than God, you will end up in one of three places in your life.

You'll either end up afraid because if you have that thing, you'll be always afraid that it'll be taken from you.

You'll live in constant fear that you won't have it.

Or you'll end up angry because there's something that's preventing you from getting it.

You'll be angry at your spouse who held you back.

You'll be angry at your friends.

You'll be angry at your parents who didn't give you the right opportunity.

You'll be angry at your kids because they took so much time that you couldn't be successful at work or whatever it is, but you'll be angry.

Or you'll be agitated.

And you'll be agitated because you'll basically say, I got what I wanted, and I found out it wasn't really enough.

I found out that what I thought would bring me the satisfaction that would finally quiet the longing in my soul didn't actually quiet the longing in my soul, that it didn't satisfy.

And so until we come to a point of realization of our need of God, what will happen is we'll just go through life kind of blindly saying, I just need the next thing.

If I can get the next thing, then my life will be good.

Now what we see after this is Jonah not just realizing his need, but really repenting.

Verse 9, it says this, but I will, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you.

What I have vowed I will make good.

I will say, salvation comes from the Lord.

And then verse 10 says, And the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

And so here, very simply, what you see is you see Jonah turning after his realization and saying, I will understand and acknowledge that salvation comes from the Lord.

And not only does salvation come from the Lord, but I am going to recommit my ways to him.

And again, there's no clear promise of deliverance here.

This is Jonah just saying, Okay, God, I bend my knee to who you are.

And sometimes what happens is we don't really see God accurately.

When he says salvation belongs to the Lord, sometimes what we do, if we're maybe people who aren't sure about faith or irreligious, is we don't really think there is such a thing as salvation.

Or we would say, yes, yes, maybe I give lip service to the idea that salvation belongs to the Lord, but down deep what we really think is that salvation belongs to us, that through our goodness, our efforts, our moral uprightness, through the way that we interact with people, how kind we are, that that is where we gain our sense of right.

But notice what he says.

He says, salvation belongs to the Lord.

And what he's doing here is he's saying something much deeper than just God can save me from this ship, but he's saying, saying, in, or this storm or this fish, he's saying, in the whole scope of God's work, salvation, deliverance is wholly and completely God's thing.

See, what some of us will do is we'll think that it's somehow our thing.

Here's how one person described grace.

He said it's an undeserved gift given by an unobligated giver.

Grace is an undeserved gift given by an unobligated giver.

And too many times we tend to get these categories mixed up.

Let me give you a few scenarios.

If you were a boss at your place of work and you had several employees, and it was time to give out Christmas bonuses, and one of your employees had been really a poor employee all year and didn't really deserve any kind of bonus, but you felt like it would be bad for morale if you didn't give that person a Christmas bonus, because they'd probably gripe and feel bad.

So you decided that you would give a Christmas bonus to that person even though they didn't deserve it.

What are you doing?

You're an obligated giver, in a sense, because you're trying to keep everything working right, even though maybe you don't feel obligated, but but you're kind of obligated because everybody's getting one.

You just say, I gotta do this.

So you're giving it to an undeserving person.

And in the second scenario, maybe you're at work and one of your coworkers is about to retire.

And this person has been a spectacular coworker.

They've always helped out extra on projects, they've gone above and beyond, they haven't nickel and dimed the company or you about time, they've just done whatever it took to advance the company.

And so you as co-workers get together and say, this person's retiring, let's give them a gift.

You're unobligated, you owe that person nothing, but the person is deserving.

But an unobligated gift to an undeserving person is more like this, and that is, there's somebody who works at a company and they've done something that has cost the company a ton of money, made a bunch of mistakes, and yet is given another chance.

Now, certainly in the human realm, in a work realm, there's a time to say, you know what, you've had enough chances, time is up.

But the lesson here is that in God's economy, in divine love, we never come to the point where we've exhausted the grace, where God will, as an unobligated giver, give to us an undeserving person.

See, in Matthew chapter 12, when Jesus says that he is, in essence, the greater Jonah, what he's doing is he's saying, Jonah was saved so that, or was thrown into the sea and sacrificed so that the fishermen could be saved.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

He's saying, in essence, I will be the one who comes and is put into the earth for three days so that you who deserve judgment can be saved from it.

It's an unobligated giver, giving an undeserving gift.

And if we don't have this right, what will happen is one of two things.

Either we won't see our need, in other words, we'll think we're deserving, or we won't see the unobligatedness of God and we won't see the love.

And if we get either one of those things wrong, what will happen is we'll either be prideful because we'll say, I don't need a God to do anything for me, or we'll take his love so for granted that we won't have any sense of appreciation of what he's actually done for us.

But when we see our need and we see the love of God in acting through Jesus Christ to deliver us, for salvation comes from the Lord, that's when we will come to a point of being able to appreciate and respond to God's grace.

So Jonah does this, he repents, and then he's recommissioned, verse 1 of chapter 3.

It says, Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.

He says, I want you to go to Nineveh, I want you to cry against it.

And he goes, and in a very short message, and we don't know if this was all of the message or how this all worked because of how it's recorded, but but he he goes, he proclaims, and we're told that the Nineveh repent.

In other words, God brings an incredible revival.

And what we see here is that God uses people and his word to bring about change.

You see, so many times we could look at things and say, well, God, you could do things differently.

If you wanted to, you could write your message on the sky, but God uses people and his word and those things together to bring about change.

And then here's the second part God uses sinful, rebellious people who have repented to bring about change.

See, there's a temptation that some of us will have, even as we hear this.

And there's a message here for you.

And the temptation is that some of us will say, you know what, I've blown it, I've run from God, I've done things that I shouldn't have done, and it's cost me.

Maybe you feel like it's cost you your marriage, or it's cost you your reputation, or it's cost you your opportunity, and you feel like there's no way that God would ever restore anything good into your life.

And what we see here with Jonah is that God, in spite of Jonah running, in spite of Jonah's rebellion, when Jonah turns, says, I am going to use you again.

So we may think the best is past, that may be your temptation, but the message here, the truth of it, is that God loves to continue giving grace.

And this isn't just isolated to Jonah.

Here are a few other instances where this is true.

Abraham lied and deceived.

Yet God used him to build a nation.

Jacob lied and deceived, just like Abraham, and yet God used him to be in the line of Christ and be a part of the family that God used to bring Christ.

Moses killed a man, and yet God used him to bring the people out of Egypt.

Aaron and Miriam grumbled against and conspired against Moses, who was the Lord's anointed leader, and yet God still led them, used them to lead.

Joshua ran ahead of God's plan to pray, and yet God still used him to lead the conquest.

Samson took a wife that he was commanded not to take, and yet God still used him as a deliverer of his people.

Saul used sacrifices for his own ends, and yet God left him in leadership for years.

David committed a sexual sin with Bathsheba, and yet is called in the New Testament a man after God's own heart.

Peter denied Jesus three times, and yet God still used him to build his church.

And in the story of the prodigal son, the son representing all of us runs to a far country, squanders the father's love and resources, and yet when he comes home, the father runs to meet him and embraces him.

In other words, the theme over and over in the Bible is this idea that God is compassionate.

And this is where Jonah is building to, because in chapter four, we're told by Jonah what God is like.

Now Jonah's protesting in chapter four, verse two, but what he says is, God, you are gracious and compassionate.

You're slow to anger, you're abounding in loving kindness.

God, you are all of these things.

And sometimes that's hard for us to believe when we've run.

Even in small ways.

And yet God is gracious.

When my wife and I lived in Michigan, the place where we lived, we lived out in the country for a few years, and it was mostly farm fields, and they had these huge ditches along the road that were like four feet.

So if you ever got off the road and went into the ditch, it would be a mess.

You wouldn't just pull your car out like you would need a serious tow truck and some different things.

Well, one day, as I was there, a semi went in one of these ditches.

And it was a farm truck that a guy was driving.

I stopped and kind of spent some time with him, made sure he was okay, tried to get him on his way, and he was he was torn up, not because he had gone in the ditch, but because it wasn't the first time he had cracked up his boss's truck.

And he's like, I'm gonna lose my job, this is gonna be awful.

And I remember after I was done interacting with him, kind of going away, just thinking about the difference between human grace and divine grace.

You see, what human grace is, is it says, I'll give you another chance.

But don't push it.

And it's probably right for the owner of that kind of truck to say at some point, you know, you you you've cracked up my truck a couple times now, you should go work for my competitor, kind of a thing.

But in divine terms, here's here's what's true, and that is you can go in the ditch, and you can go in the ditch, and you can go in the ditch, and you can go in the ditch, and you can go in the ditch, and you can go in the ditch, and you can go in the ditch.

And God is abounding in grace and compassion and willing to bring you back.

Now, now understand something, because some of you, I know right now you're uncomfortable, you're like, wait a second, wait a second, how does that work?

And aren't there there are consequences to going in the ditch?

And if you've ever really gone in the ditch and somebody has has given grace to you, what's the last thing you want to do?

It's to go back in the ditch, right?

If somebody's actually been gracious to you, you don't actually think, oh great, they're gonna be gracious.

I'm just gonna plow into the ditch the next day because then I don't have to drive all over town.

They come rescue me, it's awesome.

That is not how that works.

If you've actually gone in the ditch and actually experienced grace, what happens inside of you is you have no desire to go back in the ditch.

And so what happens when you and I experience grace isn't that we say, cool, I can do whatever I want.

We start to say, how could I offend a God who's so gracious and so great that he loves me when no human being ever would?

Have you ever thought about if you were as unfaithful to people in your life as sometimes we are to God, how those people would treat us?

I mean, the truth is, nobody would be as gracious to us as God has been.

And when we get that, when we understand that, hopefully what it does inside of us is it says, What I want more than anything is to run toward God, not away from God.

I want to align my life with all that He has commanded and all that He's instructed, all of His principles and precepts, because that's where I'll find the truest, best life.

And in every place that I run, what I'll find instead is frustration and turmoil.

Now you may be masking that right now.

Your life may be going so smoothly that you're even a little afraid to think about turning toward God because you think, you know, if I do that, that that might mess some stuff up.

And right now it's all going the way I want it to go.

But when you really see who God is and and you see the storms, you see the potential of your own idols, and you repent and turn, then God will say, Now I am going to work in your life in ways that'll transcend even what you can understand or think.

And maybe that just kind of washed right over you, but but the prayer there is saying, in essence, let God's greatness permeate into the everyday fabric of your life.

Because that's where you'll find something that everything in our world will tell you you will not find there, which is your greatest good and joy.

And you know the commission for Jonah to go to Nineveh, cry against it, isn't that dissimilar to when Jesus said to his disciples, I want you to go into all the world and I want you to tell them about me.

I want you to make disciples.

And so our hope as a as a congregation is whether it's here in Wexford, the strip district, Butler County, that that we would have people who say, not just I'm out there kind of living my life, but but people who say, What I have found is a God who's gracious and good and his ways are sweet and true.

And that it would be something that other people in this community would say, I don't know a lot about what you maybe believe or think, but I like how I see your life lived, how you handle the hardships, how you are supported relationally, how how God is part of you, the source of your joy, and and how you interact on things that matter.

And be drawn to your God.

And it's a way that then you live the commission that God gives to you as well.

But all of it comes back to understanding and celebrating the grace that God has given you.

Father, we thank you for grace, we thank you for being a God who is so gracious that even when we go in the ditch, even when we chase something that we know won't be enough, that you keep pursuing us, sending grace storms into our life if necessary, to pull us back, to bring us back to what is ultimately for our good.

So, God help us to celebrate that and pursue you.

And Father, for for some of us, maybe today is a day where we realize that our whole life has been running from you, that we've never really understood or surrendered to the idea that Jesus is the one who paid for our sin.

And maybe just even in this moment, God, you would just bring that conviction, that realization, and that first time repentance of just saying, God, I don't want to live that way.

I want to let what Christ has done pay for me.

And then to just experience the newness of that life.

And we pray all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.