The Essence of Biblical Repentance | Jonah 3:3-3:10 | Pastor Neil McClendon

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Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray together, Church.

Lord Jesus, we've witnessed it.

We've tasted and seen the goodness of God, so we don't have an excuse.

And what we've seen so far is not all that there is, so we don't live in the past and hope we can remember all the details.

We walk in obedience today and we trust you for the outcomes that are going to happen tomorrow.

Lord, we sang a few minutes ago that life eternal calls to us.

And that's what happens every time we open up the Bible.

This Zoe life of the kingdom calls out to us and says, Ali, Ali and Free.

Come out, come out wherever you are.

So, Lord, let us hear your voice today in a language we understand about things that we know and remind us today that you know.

Finally, Lord, don't let us go out.

We say we witness this and we're gonna tell the nations.

Let's not go tell the nations a trunk, a truncated gospel of fear.

Let's get both law and gospel into the message so people can hear and respond and not just live in fear, but kind of walk in enjoyment.

Increase our capacity to enjoy you today, God is what we're praying.

From your word and by your spirit, would you do these things, God?

This is what we're asking for.

We ask as your sons and daughters, and in Jesus' name and all God's people said, Amen, amen.

You could have a seat.

If you got a Bible, I invite you to take it up to uh open up to Jonah chapter three.

If you're our guest today, we're preaching through the book of Jonah.

It's a book in the Old Testament, kind of towards the back back there.

And the book of Jonah, the central character of the book of Jonah is the word of God.

The word of God comes to a man named Jonah.

If you haven't been here, if you're visiting today for the first time, you haven't missed anything.

I'll bring you up to speed in 30 seconds.

The word of the Lord comes to a guy named Jonah, and he says, Hey, go to this city called Nineveh.

It's a bunch of uh wicked people.

I mean, they were so violent, they would kill people and skin them and put their skins on the walls of the city underneath the sign that said, Welcome to Nineveh.

Okay, no one wanted to go there.

And Jonah didn't want to go there because he thought they deserved punishment, not mercy.

You got anybody in your life that you think I'd like to see them punished, not forgiven?

Say amen.

Some of you are honest.

Yeah, my ex-husband, uh, but I digress.

Anyway, and so this is what happens.

God says, go this way, God goes down.

I mean, Jonah goes down, Ubers a ship, and goes that way, trying to get away.

And God's like, hey, bro, where are you gonna hide in a world where I control everything?

And so God sends a storm.

The storm gets so raucous, the sailors on the boat cast lots and say, Hey, somebody's got some stinky monkey on them, okay?

Got some bad stuff on them.

They cast slots, they realize it's Jonah.

They said, What do we do with you, man?

He says, I'm running.

It's me.

Throw me overboard, throws him overboard.

God sends a big fish to come along because there's nowhere you can go, you can get in your disobedience uh away from God.

The big fish swallows him up.

Uh, and as I told you last week, I think he dies and is resurrected.

He spit up on the beach, and now he's going to the city Nineveh to do what God told him to do.

So we'll pick up the story in chapter three, verse one.

I want to talk to you this morning about the essence of biblical repentance.

The essence of biblical repentance, because there's a there's a lot.

I think we appease God more than we repent for our sins, or we appease ourselves.

So I just want to let the text kind of unpack, okay?

Jonah chapter three, verse one says this.

Then the word of the Lord, the central character of the book of Jonah, is the word of the Lord, not a big fish.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.

So Jonah arose and he 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, go on a day's journey, and he called out, Yet forty days that Nineveh shall be overthrown.

And the people of Nineveh believed.

They called for a fast and put on, they believed God, they called for a fast, they put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.

The world, excuse me, the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself in sackcloth and sat in ashes, and issued a proclamation and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything.

Lest 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 his violence that is in his hands.

Who knows?

God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

There's three things I want to point to in the text this morning under this, uh under this title, The Essence of Biblical Repentance.

And the first one is simply this the message you preach informs the response.

The message that you preach and that I preach, it informs the response that you get.

And I want you to see what what Jonah does is it says right there in verse 4, it says, Jonah began to go into the city, go on a day's journey.

Now it's three days, you know, to go all the way through the city, it's three days.

It's like people say you live in Houston.

I say, No, I live in Sugarland.

I I don't go to Houston unless I need world-class medical care, which I can get a lot of that here.

Uh, but but you know, it's a way 30 minutes is nothing of a drive.

Okay, people say, Oh, how far do you drive?

I'm like, I got people drive from an hour away to come to church here, okay?

So driving 30 minutes, that ain't nothing, okay?

It's three days' journey.

Can you imagine?

Jonah does a day's walking and he's getting to the city.

The city's feeling bigger and bigger, and he's feeling smaller and smaller.

And I think this is one of the things that kind of stirs him up because he gets there, he kind of truncates the gospel.

He kind of shrinks down uh what God wants to say, and he says it like this it says, He called out, yet 40 days that nine of us shall be overthrown.

It's kind of a it's a doom and gloom.

I remember being at the cotton bowl one year, and after the game, we're all streaming out, and a guy jumps up on the corner post of the uh of the stairs and just starts screaming, You're on the broad path to destruction.

You're gonna bust hell wide open.

And people were just walking by, just tuning that out.

And I was like, as a critical, I stopped, and the people were bumping into me.

I was like, hey, hey, tell the other part, okay?

Tell tell the and finally the guy he kind of looked, and I was like, it's more than that.

I'm trying to explain the the bigness of the gospel.

It's 70,000 people trying to get out of a football stadium because AM just lost.

It didn't go well, it did not go well, and I was just like, and and and I got pushed down the stairs and I got way down there and looked back, and the guy had his Bible out and was just throttling people as they came out.

And I just thought, oh Jesus, make his voice stop working.

Here's why I don't want 70,000 people to walk away and think that's what the gospel is.

This is what Jesus died for us to tell people, okay?

You see, this kind of preaching produces more fear than understanding and a short-term response, but not long-term fruit.

Jesus said, It's my desire that you bring forth fruit, not just fruit, but fruit that will last.

And I'm concerned that like Jonah, oftentimes we leave out the whole message, okay?

He stopped at telling them that their city was going to be destroyed.

That's the law.

And that's true.

But he didn't get to the good part that they could repent and be forgiven.

That's gospel, okay?

Now, before we pile on Jonah, let me just say to you, we do the same thing.

One of my first experiences before I came to faith with you church people, you Christians, was that you all said the same thing to me.

Oh, well, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, it's Romans 3.23.

I brought you this little phrase that I used to hear all the time that people would say to me, Well, Neil, you know the Bible teaches that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Now, just for the record, I just felt like you got some memorized spiel and you start with this to put me down here and you up here.

And that's my I like that kind of party.

I like those odds.

Me against the world, bring it on, okay?

Now, by the way, this is what's called in senior English a fragment.

Okay?

It's not the whole sentence.

For all of sin is sure and falls short of the glory of God.

That's law.

It's a true statement.

That means every one of us in this room have fallen short of God's standard.

You know it, I know it.

Sometimes you wake up the next morning and you feel it.

But I, by the way, I didn't, when I was 16, I didn't need anybody to tell me this.

I knew it.

I knew that there was an otherness to God that I didn't comprehend.

I knew that I was separated from God.

I knew that I was sinful.

But I the thing I was trying to, I had the language back then, but I wanted to say the Christians that would engage me, there weren't many of them, but I wanted just to say, is this the best thing you've got to tell me?

Because I didn't have to meet you to know this.

However, I'm just saying we do what Jonah does.

We truncate, we shrink it down to the phrases that put us in charge of the conversation.

However, uh, this is just the law, but it goes on to get to the gospel because that involves both law and grace.

And so I want you to hear this whole verse in its context and its entirety, okay?

Here's the whole verse.

Here's that statement in its proper context.

Romans chapter 3 actually starts the train of thought starts in verse 21.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

It says, But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.

Look at me.

Great news.

The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.

Translation, there's a way to be right with God for those who can't keep the rules.

That was that would have been good news to me, church people, okay?

And he goes on and says this although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, law and the prophets, that's the Old Testament.

The Old Testament told you this was coming and now it's here.

The righteousness of God, what is this?

The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

No one ever said that.

They never said, hey, if you're gonna say that the universal principle that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, include the part that says, hey, this is available for all who believe.

For there's no distinction, that would have been good to know as well.

There's no distinction.

Rich, poor, black, white, yellow, red, tootie fruity, fruit stripe.

No distinction.

There's no distinction.

I grew up in a town where church was for well-mannered white people.

There's no distinction for all of sin.

Here comes your favorite fragment.

For all of sin and fall short of the glory of God.

Now notice the punctuation after the word, uh, after God.

It's not a period.

We always put a period there.

That's that little shrunk down gospel.

We should have a movie called Honey, I shrunk the gospel.

Instead of Honey, I shrunk the kids.

I shrunk it down to where I just stirred up fear in people.

And I'm going to show you why that's a problem in just a minute.

So stay with me.

He says, for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God, comma.

And they're justified by his grace as a gift.

No one said that to me.

No one said, hey, dude, listen, you're an angry little vigilante kid, okay?

You sinned.

You know that.

But let me tell you, here's the great part about that.

You can be justified.

God can make you just as if you've never sinned, and this is a gift.

Would you like to receive that gift, Neil?

I never heard that.

I'd have become a Christian when I was seven.

I'd have stopped eating boogers.

I would have stopped, you know, I'd have quit all my evil behavior.

But all I heard was, well, all of sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Thank you.

I didn't need you to talk to me today to feel that.

I already knew that.

And they're justified by his grace as a gift.

The redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

But it says, but that God put forward as a propitiation.

That means the wrath of an angry deity has been satisfied.

Nobody had never said to me, also, hey, by the way, Neil, God's not mad at you.

He loves you.

He sent his son to die on the cross in your place and for your sins.

Okay?

He knows everything you've ever done, and he died anyway.

And all you have to do is have enough faith to receive this.

And so I would ask you as I'm talking today, ask yourself, do you have enough faith to receive that?

Because that gospel that I didn't hear, that full juicy gospel, okay?

I got a little dried up raisin.

I didn't get the grape.

I didn't get the, oh, here's the big picture.

I got a little fragment that they pulled out and put in some tract, and people would see me and go, hey, there's that McClendon kid.

He's a delinquent.

Let's talk to him.

I didn't want to know the God that they knew because they didn't seem to know him very well, much less enjoy him.

They seem to enjoy stirring up fear.

And here's the problem: it doesn't take faith to believe a truncated gospel.

It only takes fear.

Which is why there's so many people who responded to a message of fear that are walking around nowadays, uncertain of where they really stand with God.

And here's why.

Because you may not language at this clearly, but you're like, well, I was really scared back then when I prayed the prayer.

I'm not as scared now, so do I have to still do anything?

And this is why a lot of people leave the faith.

Because they never came to faith.

They were afraid.

And once the fear passed, the desire for the things of God passed.

See, the message that you preach informs the response that you get.

Secondly, I would just say there's a difference in repentance and appeasement.

There's a difference in repentance and appeasement.

Uh, like someone asked me this week, they said, Hey, where are we in Jonah this week?

I said, Well, we're gonna kind of repeat the first part of chapter three.

I'm gonna read the whole chapter.

And the guy goes, Where Nineveh repents, right?

And I said, Did they?

And he looked at me like, Don't mess with me again this week.

I'm still getting over last week.

I just asked you the same question.

Did Nineveh really repent?

I'll just read it again, verses five to nine.

Here's what they did Jonah puts the fear of God in them 40, yep, 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

And the people of Nineveh believed God.

Man, that's a great thing to do.

And they called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.

Verse 6: the word of the Lord reached the king of Nineveh.

And he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

And he issued a can you imagine our president coming on TV today and doing that?

And just he's got ash all over him.

He's like, listen, this is your president, Donald J.

Trump.

America has sinned against the holy God.

We don't need tariffs, we need repentance and revival.

Some of you are like, Don't you talk about Donald Trump that way?

Look what else they did.

And he says in verse 7, and he issued a proclamation and put and published it throughout Nineveh.

By the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast nor herd nor fly taste anything, uh anything.

Let them not feed or drink, but let the man and the beast be covered with sackcloth and let them call out mightily to God.

I mean, it's kind of like, hey, your chihuahua is too happy.

Throw some ashes on that dog and tell him to be sad.

I mean, this is pretty sincere.

Look at me.

Repentance is not about sincerity, it's about understanding.

Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hand.

Who knows?

Who knows?

This is a big clue right here to the fact that I don't think they repent at all.

How do you repent in relation to a God that you don't even know?

Who knows?

God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.

There's the bottom line.

We don't want to perish.

We don't want to stop sinning against you.

We just don't want this to affect us.

And so again, there's a difference in repentance and appeasement.

Uh, and a lot of people say, oh, well, people never repented.

Nah, I beg to differ, okay?

Notice what they did.

I brought you a list here.

They believed God, they were sorry, they went into complete fast.

I mean, food and water, they made it a law.

Hey, you you can't eat or drink, and your dogs, your animals can't eat or drink, okay?

Now, by the way, that would make some of you disbelieve in God right there.

Don't you mistreat my animal.

They prayed, they turned from their sin, and they said, God, we're we're we're we're we're turning from our sin.

We're repenting of our sin, which that's what repentance is to turn away, and and and and the sin that we've done, and the violence that we that we were planning on doing, we're not gonna skin any people anymore and put their skins on the outside on the walls of the city.

We're gonna stop all that.

Let me just say this.

Remember this.

You can turn, if your sin is over here, you can turn from your sin and never turn to God.

And if you just turn from your sin and you never turn to God, it's just a matter of time before you turn back to your sin.

Repentance is not just turning, biblical repentance is not just turning from sin, it is turning to God.

And that way you've turned your back on your sin.

Okay, you didn't do something just kind of turned around like, oh well, I'm back where I started.

But I just got a little bit of emotion.

As soon as the emotion wears off, I'll be right back to your sin.

Don't go anywhere.

There's a difference in repentance and appeasement.

And you say, Well, okay, I I don't know what you mean.

Uh uh, okay.

Um there's a lot of what I call cultural repentance that takes place in America, not biblical repentance.

Uh and let me demonstrate.

Remember 9-11?

Remember that?

Remember the Sunday after 9-11 what church was like?

It was standing room only.

And then when we realized, oh, we're not gonna perish, remember the next Sunday?

It was back to normal.

That's cultural repentance.

And that's what Nineveh does.

They turn, they're like, oh God, look, we're gonna stop doing bad.

They turn from sin, but they don't turn to God.

Repentance is not just turning away from sin, it is turning to God, listen to me, to such a degree that you can no longer feel the way of the same way about sin anymore.

It's helpful for us to have this biblical definition of repentance.

And so I want to give you one today, okay?

Get ready to get your camera out and take a picture because in just a minute, a bunch of questions are gonna come up.

These are questions that I use in counseling with people.

I have no original ideas, I steal them all from the Bible.

Like when I see people like someone's cheated or been unfaithful, and I'm like, hey, you can work through anything as long as you're willing to tell the truth and work hard.

Are you willing to tell the truth?

Yes, yes, yes.

Are you willing to work hard?

Yeah, what do you mean by work hard?

It's gonna get awkward in here.

And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I turn to this passage.

This is 2 Corinthians chapter 7, starting about verse 8.

2 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

It says this.

Paul, now, this is a letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church that we don't have a record of.

And he kind of got after them, okay?

He put a boot on their on their butt and they didn't they didn't like it.

He says, This, for even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it, for I see that the letter grieved you, though only for a while.

As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting.

For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment at every point you have proved yourselves innocent in this matter.

So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God.

Therefore, we are comforted.

Now, I realize if you're new today, I realize it's like, whoo, that was a lot.

You lost me three sentences in.

Is the coffee bar still open?

Absolutely.

Slip out quietly and make your way to some caffeine.

But before you do, let me tell you this, okay?

Uh, this is what I call the fruit of repentance.

These are the nine questions that I ask people, and it never fails to stir people up.

And I get them all right.

The fruit of repentance, all those things he listed, he said, earnestness.

See what earnestness this has stirred up in you.

Earnestness asks this question what is your focus?

What are you giving your attention to these days?

Eagerness to clear yourself is telling the truth hard for you.

Telling the truth not just to you, but also about you.

I'm not just telling the truth to somebody else that I sinned against, I'm telling the truth to myself.

And so, do you have an eagerness to clear yourself?

Thirdly, indignation.

Oh, where is your anger directed?

I ask men this a lot because men don't like it when they feel exposed and they and they act out or they raise their voice, or sometimes they'll use profanity, like, I'm sorry I said that in front of you.

I'm like, I hear that at every elder meeting.

You're okay.

Um, it's a joke.

It's almost like I'm gonna cause and you're gonna lose track.

I'm like, no, not at all.

Where's your anger directed?

And I have to tell some people listen, you're wasting a lot of emotional energy being angry at the wrong person.

Well, I'm not mad at my wife, I'm mad at God.

Good luck with that.

Yeah.

Fear.

What is your fear?

You should ask yourself, what is your fear?

Okay?

Longing.

What is the biggest desire of your heart?

If the biggest desire of your heart is to stop having to talk about this, you haven't repented.

You want to cover up.

Any insecurity you stir up in your spouse, it's your responsibility to manage that insecurity.

So, what is your fear?

What is your fear?

A man said to me, She's gonna hold this over me the rest of my life.

And if she does, what would that mean?

Well, I'm not gonna be treated like that.

No, if she holds it over you the rest of your life after you've asked for forgiveness and she's forgiven you, then your wife doesn't believe the gospel.

And he said, Well, what can you talk about that?

Sure.

Because when you forgive somebody, you don't say, Hey, I forgive you, but I got it right here in my pocket, and don't get out of line because I'll whip it out like a stick and use it on you.

To forgive somebody is to be, it's like Ephesians 4 32.

Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ has forgiven you.

You start there and work backwards.

How has God in Christ forgiven you?

And a couple asked me this recently.

Relax.

Some of you are like, I would go see you, but you may talk about me from the platform.

That never happens, okay?

And anytime I talk about people that I counsel, they're like, hey man, after they've come through, like if our story would help anybody, by all means use our story.

Just don't use my name.

I'm like, I would never use your name.

Okay?

But I said, hey, if your wife has really forgiven you, and and and then as God in Christ has forgiven her.

What she does with your sin is what God did with your sin.

And that's it.

The Bible says he throws it into the sea and remembers it no more.

And his wife leaned up and said, Say that part again.

I said, Yeah, your husband's cheating on you is not your weapon of mass destruction to modify his behavior for the rest of your marriage.

If you forgive him, I'm not saying you'll forget because you'll never forget.

Anybody that tells you that is just stupid, okay?

Stupid's a bad word, boys and girls.

Don't use it, okay?

But every once in a while, the Holy Spirit gives Pastor O'Neil special permission.

Because everyone wants to talk about forgiveness when it comes to them.

Oh Lord.

Because I just say, hey, by the way you forgive, you're erecting a standard by which you want God to forgive you.

No one likes that either.

And so the guy, all of a sudden, he's got some lie because he's gone from whoa, whoa, there's now he's like hopeful, and she's like not happy.

Can we get the part where he sinned against me?

Yes, that's why you're in my office.

He sinned against you.

But if you do not, if you if you can't throw his sin into the sea and remember it no more, then you haven't forgiven him.

You're using his sin to manipulate him so you get to be in the one-up posture in the relationship and be safe.

Well, we don't have to come back.

You don't.

You don't even go to my church.

So if you don't come back, what's not gonna happen?

I just want you to know that.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Uh, zeal.

What are you most passionate about?

Here's one punishment.

Who do you want to punish?

Who do you want to punish?

Proof.

This is these last two are the are are the bombs that get dropped, okay?

Proof.

What do you point to as evidence that your repentance is real?

You say, where do you get to right out of 1 Corinthians 7?

He says, right there.

I just read it.

At every point you have proved yourself innocent in this matter.

That means, hey man, you don't walk in and put your cell phone over there so your wife can't see it or put it under your pillow where she can't get to it.

That's not proof.

I work a couple right now.

The guy comes in every day and hands his wife his phone.

Why?

Because he was texting inappropriate things with a woman.

And I said, What would bring you peace of mind?

She goes, I want full access.

I want all your passwords.

I want everything.

And he goes, Well, I mean, this is kind of like my money.

You know, we don't have, we have separate checking accounts.

So that's, I don't think that's even biblical, but that's another, that's a whole nother session.

So listen, you have a one-flesh relationship.

This calls a man shall leave his mother and his father and cleave it to his wife, and the two become one flesh.

How do you have a one-flesh relationship when there's things in your life that your wife doesn't know?

And so I joke in the can you feel how what it feels like in here right now?

Yes, yes, yes.

My name is N E I L, not any A-L, okay?

Get it right when you send me the email.

Or you bring me your gift of gratitude this week and lay it at my office door.

Okay?

I like savory, not sweet.

Okay, there you go.

But look at me.

How do you have a one-flesh relationship?

And there'll be anything in your life your wife doesn't know, or anything in your life ladies that your husband doesn't know.

So I'll joke with it every once in a while.

I like it lady as we just kind of like, don't talk about Marcy like that.

I'm like, Marcy's not the Virgin Mary, okay?

Because I said, my wife is so selfish, she insists on knowing everything.

And the guy, the lady looked at me like, are you kidding?

I can't, I can't do it.

No, here's the thing.

In a one-flesh relationship, you can't be selfish because there's nothing you can't know.

So yeah.

Sometimes my wife, she's I don't know, she's suspicious.

I got nothing to hide.

No.

No.

Proof.

What do you point to is evidence that your repentance is real?

And by the way, volume and emotion is not evidence, it's desperation.

You gotta believe me this time, Pastor.

No, no, mm-mm mm mm mm-mm.

You should never insist that people believe you.

That's what con men say.

That's what con women say.

Oh, you got to believe me.

No, I don't.

Let me see some proof.

Here's the last one, which is which is the hardest, most consequential one.

Comfort.

Because he says right here, hey, because of this, okay, it's a it's a verse 13.

Therefore, we are comforted.

The last verse.

Where do you get comfort?

Who is comforted by your repentance?

If you're the only one who is comforted by your repentance, you didn't repent, you appeased your conscience and maybe avoided some consequences, like the people of Nineveh.

So I ask people, especially when there's infidelity, hey, are you comforted by your spouse's repentance?

And they go, What do you what do you what do you mean?

Are you comforted?

Does your soul feel at rest?

Are you suspicious, nervous?

Do you feel like a fool for having forgiven them?

Because it might happen again.

Here's how you know you repented.

You're not the only one that's comforted.

Everybody that knows you is comforted.

People at work are like, hey, hey, hey, John, there's something different about you.

Hey, Bill, man, you whoo.

I was kind of worried about you for a little bit, but man, I am so strangely comforted by your behavior.

I can tell you repented.

That's what we're that's biblical.

This is why it's called the essence of biblical repentance.

And now, by the way, let me just spill it all out here, okay?

Uh here's the key.

They're trying to appease God.

And when you're trying to appease God, here's how you know you appeal to him on the basis of what you don't want him to do or what you don't want to see happen.

You should ask yourself, how much of my life is spent doing this?

Then in verse 9, they said, Hey, God, we did all of this so that we may not perish.

And who knows, God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.

This is this is the bottom line.

They're so selfish, even in their repentance, they're all about themselves.

Then there's David in Psalm 51.

This is what repentance sounds like.

Against thee and thee only have I sinned.

Oh my gosh.

I don't care what it means for me.

I have marred the character and integrity and sufficiency of Almighty God.

Oh my God, that's terrible.

Or as my Irish friend Robin Mark says on a worship CD, oh Lord, where your name's been solid.

Well, your name's been brought alone.

I don't even know what that means, but I want to say it.

Oh Lord, where your name's been solid.

Well, your name's been brought low.

Yeah, these cats are like us.

We now, by the way, let me just say this and we'll go to the next point.

We want this to be repentance because it reflects what we do when we sin.

Some of you are composing me by like, I'm gonna get I'm gonna push back.

It's great.

Well, I'm open to being wrong as long as you are.

This Nineveh does not repent.

And it says right here in my Bible above the next little above verse six, the people of Nineveh repent.

And I took a pen and wrote, No, they didn't.

Because the little titles and the numbers weren't in there when it was originally written.

They put that in there so you could find your place around them.

Nothing wrong with that.

But here's the thing: let the Bible tell you what the Bible's saying, not somebody else.

Not even me.

Be like the Bereans.

I say something, take it to the Word and see if what I'm saying matches up with the Word.

Here's the last point.

God's mercy is easily accessible.

So if you were really kind of bothered by that, be comforted by this.

Look at verse 10.

When God saw what they did, which look at me, wasn't much.

It was a bunch of externals.

We're gonna fast and we're not gonna feed the dog for three days despite how sad he looks, you know.

He's a golden doodle.

We played a lot for that God.

And we're sorry, we're really sorry.

I mean, God, we did all this stuff.

I mean, we believed God that what you said, we were sorry.

We went into complete fast, we prayed, we turned from sin that we've done, and we we said we're not gonna do this violence that we had in our heart to do.

I mean, come on, man, what else?

Here's the thing.

When I say God's mercy is easily accessible, it's not like some Indiana Jones movie where there's a super intellectual historical clue, but only Indy can figure out the breath of God, the word of God, or the path of God.

Or it's not like Mission Impossible, where Benji is dying, maybe, and has to be saved by an Eskimo woman, or the bomb, detonate the bomb, or the bomb's gonna blow up and end the world.

It's not like that at all.

No.

Look at how simple it is.

They simply turn from their evil ways, and God restrains himself, okay?

It says in verse 10, when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

Now, some people like to say, well, that means God repented.

A holy God doesn't repent because he didn't do anything wrong.

Check yourself, be careful.

No, no, no, no, no.

They simply turn from the evil ways and God restrains himself and extends mercy to people who don't deserve it.

Remind you of anybody?

Now, when it says God relented, think of it like that.

Well, if he didn't repent, what does it mean?

It means that God restrained himself.

God restrained himself.

He just restrained himself.

He's like, oh, oh, some of you've had the experience before.

You all worked up, you're like, oh, ooh, ooh, then you're like, oh, oh.

Like I had to restrain myself, okay?

The last day of school.

Everybody, every parent at school thinks our parking lot is just their right-of-way.

And so I'm trying to get out and go to a lunch meeting.

And they are backed up because they got out, they got out half day.

And so, because they got that tax dollars, we don't want you here anymore.

And so they were all the way down 14 this side, this driveway here, out on 1464.

I backed up.

There's a little bit of an opening.

I thought the lady was being gracious and letting me in.

So I just pulled into the line and she rolled down the window and said, You ball, blah, blah, blah, beep, beep.

I'm like, easy on the hair, lady.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

I had my window up and I can hear her.

Now, look at me.

We we we still have the thumbprint of Adam on us.

That was sin nature.

And I heard, blah, blah, blah.

I reached for my door.

And I was like, Oh, you ain't talking to me.

I'll snatch a knot in you right here in God's parking lot.

You'll limp all the way home.

And then I restrained myself.

Actually, the Holy Spirit in me said, Hey, what are we doing?

What are we doing?

You ain't about to be disrespecting me.

And so I restrained myself, rolled down my window, and I said, I work here.

You're trespassing.

And all the other stuff had to go away.

Don't honk at me.

Don't scream at me.

What are you doing?

Yeah, God restrains himself.

That's what it means in him.

He relented.

Don't miss this.

In restraining himself, God demonstrates that his mercy is as big as his sovereignty.

Let me say that again.

In restraining himself, all you deep people that got mad at me last week, listen up closely, I'm coming for you again.

Oh, yeah, I know you're like, Did you hear what he said?

If you weren't here, what I said was, and by the way, I'm also the guy that says the church in America doesn't need more people.

We need deeper people.

But what we don't need is deep people who are like, we need deep Bible studies.

We can get together and talk about things that nobody else cares about so we can distinguish ourselves.

No, you don't.

That's not what you need at all.

You need to be like God, okay?

He restrains himself because his mercy is as big as his sovereignty.

If in your mind, deep people, God's sovereignty is bigger than his mercy, you don't know God.

Because he wants people to understand this.

Now, by the way, if you weren't here, I swear I kind of got after deep people who want everything to be deep, but here's why.

Nothing against deep people.

Look at me, but be as wide as you are deep.

You say, What do you mean?

If you're just deep, you're like a well that's been abandoned because people don't feel safe around that person.

And eventually small children fall into you and we have to get them out, okay?

It's not good.

But look at me.

I'm not making fun of you, okay?

I work hard to be a deep person.

But if you're deep and wide, you're not like a well, you're like a swimming pool.

And little kids frolic around and refresh themselves.

And adults like to be next to the pool and just sun themselves.

They just enjoy being around the pool.

The older you are, the less you get in the actual pool.

So people say, We're going to the pool.

No, you're not.

You're going to be next to the pool to sun yourself, but you won't even get in the pool.

Look at me.

Deep people.

Do people enjoy themselves around you?

Are you the person that can have two conversations and they're both ripped out of the last book you read?

Or can you be like God?

Deep and wide.

I wrote a song.

And wide, there's a fountain flowing deep and wide.

Wide and deep.

Yes.

First thing I learned, Milligan Drive Baptist Church.

And we only went there when my dad got drunk and had a fight with my stepmom, and they felt bad.

But one Sunday I was there and they sang a song.

I was maybe seven.

And they said of God that God is deep and wide.

Deep and wide.

And then they said this there's a fountain flowing deep and wide.

And I walked away and got in the station wagon, the green woody panel station wagon that was 27 feet long.

And I thought, that sounds refreshing.

That sounds yeah.

Absolutely.

And I want to close just by magnifying the wideness of God's mercy from God's word.

But God, being rich in mercy.

Are you rich in what God's rich in?

Rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

His mercies never come to an end.

They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness.

The Lord is my portion, says my soul.

Therefore, I will hope in him.

Therefore, from Isaiah 30, the Lord waits to be gracious to you.

Hello.

If you're here and you're running, you're on the ship, and you think you're getting away, you're not getting anywhere.

The only thing you're getting away from is the experience of God's mercy.

Therefore, the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.

For the Lord is a God of justice, and blessed are all those who wait for him.

From the 103rd Psalm, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

From Hebrews 4, let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace.

Why?

That we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

And then finally, this surely, surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

And then eventually I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Look at me and I'm done.

I don't care if you're the biggest sinner in this room.

I don't care if you're conservative and watch Fox News or you're kind of liberal and watch CNN.

I don't care if you don't have a TV.

I don't care if you homeschool your kids or they go to public school.

I don't care if you sinned nine years ago or nine hours ago.

Look at me.

I can tell you this on the authority of God's word.

Look at me.

Goodness and mercy are following you.

They're just coming after you.

They just, and when they find you, look at me.

They unwind you.

You don't need some truncated, oh, do you know that all the sin and falls short of the glory of God?

And the wages of sin is death.

Okay, thanks, bro.

This seems to be meeting your need, but not mine.

I just say to you, back there in the in the cheap seats, the goodness of God and the mercy of God is following you.

And it's going to follow you the rest of your life.

And you're going to either experience that and be changed by it, or you're going to wonder about it and never, ever, ever taste and see that the Lord is good.

Jonah is a great example of the essence of biblical repentance.

Let's pray together.

If you're our guest, just relax.

We like to teach the Bible and then we'll give you some space to think about it.

So some questions come up on the screen.

This is for your consideration, contemplation.

You can take a picture with your phone.

We talk about these in our community groups when they meet.

Also, we talk about them at lunch.

But right now, don't do anything.

Just be still and just ask the Lord, Lord, what have my name on it today?

What do you want me to think about more as I leave this place and get ready to go to Bible study across the parking lot?

Or I get on to what I got next, whatever.

When I'm riding the vans to San Antonio, do I want to put my AirPods in and act like I'm listening to something?

But I want to think about this one thing I heard today.

Think about that right now.

Yes, Lord.

We say yes to your mercy.

We say no to our self-hatred, our determination, our deceiving, our scheming, the lies we tell, the half-truths we want our parents to believe.

We can be a Weasley people when we don't believe in mercy.

I just pray we get tired of being weasley, just kind of greasy, just never, never, ever practicing full disclosure.

And therefore, no one's comforted when we talk.

If anything, they're emotionally dysregulated because we have a track record of not being forthright.

But Lord, eternal life calls out to us every time we open the Bible in your mercy and your goodness today.

There's people in this room that when you say your mercy and goodness has been following you, they get a little weepy because they're like, Yeah.

Yeah.

I was at my beach house the other day, and I was like, oh gosh, God's been so good to me.

Thank you, Lord.

This is an expression of your goodness.

So, Holy Spirit, I pray you would lead us into the truth, regardless of how good that is.

Lord, let people slow down who need to experience your goodness and your mercy.

And uh I pray, God, they'd stop focusing on their badness and think more about your goodness.

We pray this in Jesus' name and everyone said.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you for being here today.

If you're a guest, let me say this.

You're always welcome.

You're always welcome.

If you're visiting for the first time today, uh, all we ask of you is if you just text the word welcome to that number on the screen behind me gives us a record of your visit.

But also let me say this: this is for everybody.

Some of our pastors and our staff will be down front, some of our elders uh will be down front when you're dismissed here in a second.

That's our invitation to use the traditional word.

Uh, we always want to answer questions, pray with you, anything you got going on.

If you heard something today, you're like, hey, I didn't understand that.

I got a question, come and ask it.

We welcome questions, okay?

We don't know everything.

If you ask us something we don't know, we'll say, I don't know.

Let me think about that, do some research, and I'll get back to you, okay?

Uh but if you're our guest today, all we ask is just text welcome to that number.

It gives us a record of your visit, we'll shoot you a text back, okay?

We've got things going on in the life of our church that we want you to be a part of.

We make you aware of that by way of our video announcements, so check out the screens this morning.

Here's what's happening at Graham Parkway Baptist Church.

We are still collecting food from our Brothers Keeper Outreach Center through June 15th.

This is an opportunity for us to live out our core value of blessing to a local community.

Please drop off your canned goods and non-perishable food items at the Mission Center in the lobby.

Women of Graham Park Way, drop by the Fellowship Hall, June 18th at 9 a.m.

for a quick breakfast, good conversation, and a chance to get to know some new faces.

If you're dropping the kiddos off at Pineco or Camp Park, swing by for a bit.

Please register to let us know you're coming.

We love your kiddos, but this one is for adults only.

For more information or to register for these events, please visit our website at grandparkway.org.

If you have any questions or want someone to pray for you, find one of our pastors or elders at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

I love that part.

We love your kiddos, but don't bring your kids.

They're gonna have memosas.

No, they're not.

I'm just kidding.

Would I conclude our service with a spoken blessing?

So stand to your feet.

Hold your hands out.

Stop moaning.

You're not that old.

To be Christ-like is to be deep and wide.

Depart now and get better at whichever one of those you need to get better at.

God doesn't like it when little kids fall in a well.

He likes it when they frolic wildly in a swimming pool that's refreshing.

That's what Jesus died for you to be.

So depart now and be that.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.