Voices of Truth // There's a Purpose in the Plan

You knew something that was God's plan, but it didn't make sense to you if you've been following Jesus for any length of time.

You know exactly what that's like.

These times can be confusing.

These times can cause doubts.

In fact, some of these times they can just flat out get you mad.

You know, it's easy for a pastor like me to stand up and say, follow God's plan.

God's plan is the best plan.

But sometimes God's plans don't seem like they're the best plans.

And they confuse us.

And sometimes they disappoint us.

And sometimes they leave us in a place where we're just literally perplexed.

God, why do you want me to do this?

God, why am I in this circumstance that I'm in?

And if you've ever felt this way, you are not alone.

I remember when I was 20 years old, I was in Bible college and I was in this little Bible college bubble.

In my little Bible college bubble, there was just a few things that were really important to me.

And one of those, being a great preacher.

I want to be the next Billy Graham.

If you don't know who Billy Graham is, do yourself a favor.

Look him up.

I want to be the next Billy Graham.

And there was a competition, a preaching competition.

Kind of weird now that I think about it.

Preaching competition at my college.

And I'm I'm like, I can win this thing.

So I prepared and I studied and I practiced and I prepared and I was gonna win this preaching competition.

150 people, I got this.

Y'all, I didn't even make it past the first round.

And I'm like, what?

I'm like, hold on.

God, God, God, God, God.

From my perspective, if I'm gonna be the next Billy Graham, then I gotta at least get past the first round.

This is my perspective, God.

You gotta get me past the first round.

What I didn't realize is that God had a purpose and the plan.

And while my plan was for me to be a great preacher, God's plan was for me to be a humble preacher.

And there was a purpose in the plan.

And something about God's plan is that God's plan is always greater than your perspective.

You see, from my perspective, I'm like, hey, hey, I'm at I'm at Bible college because I want to be a great preacher.

God's plan was no, no, I I I want you to be a humble preacher.

And if you're anything like me, there are times, in fact, some of y'all are here right now, where we wrestle with God's plan.

And from your perspective, God's plan doesn't make sense.

From your perspective, right now, it's easier to stop and go the other direction.

From your perspective, it's really uncomfortable to follow God's plan in this difficult place.

But friend, I'm I'm just here to say that there's a purpose in his plan.

And when you don't understand God's plan, you can always trust God's heart.

We're starting a series today called Voices of Truth, Courage in Dark Times.

And the irony of today is we're talking about a prophet that did not follow God's plan.

We're talking about somebody that's that's a lot more like you and a lot more like me than we often realize.

Sometimes we we read guys in scripture and women in scripture, and we're like, man, there's just no way, like they're not like me at all.

I feel like we're talking about a guy today named Jonah.

That's a lot like all of us.

And Jonah opted out of God's plan because God's plan didn't make sense to Jonah.

Like God's plan sometimes doesn't make sense to us.

And what we're gonna see today, number one, is that God's plan often doesn't make sense.

Which takes us to Jonah chapter number one.

And if you're ready for it, would you say amen?

This is what Jonah chapter one, verse number one says, and some of us have have read this before, but I think there could be a little more than meets the eye in the story of Jonah, which is what we're gonna see today.

Is the word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amitai.

Get up.

Get up.

Go to the great.

I love that.

He's Jesus, God's just real with him.

He's like, get up.

You know, like some of you parents, school's getting started with your kids.

Get up.

Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it.

Because their evil has come up before me.

See, Jonah is a prophet.

He's a spokesperson, he's a messenger to the nation of Israel.

Nineveh is not a part of the nation of Israel.

Nineveh is in a place called the Assyrian Empire.

Jonah was okay with being a prophet to the nation of Israel.

And also, here's what's interesting: in the hundreds of years before this, God had never, not one time told a prophet to be a prophet to a place outside of the nation of Israel.

This didn't make sense.

And second of all, of all the places God wanted him to go, it was to Nineveh in the Assyrian Empire.

I don't know if there's any history nerds that like history of civilization and all that stuff, but if you do, you know about the Assyrian Empire.

These were some evil folk.

They would be considered a terrorist state if they were an empire today.

For example, just brace yourselves here.

They would go, they would conquer a city, they would take the women and the children, and they would skin them alive, and they would put their skin on the walls of the city.

And God told Jonah to go there.

I don't know about that one, God.

On top of this, I know this is a shocker, those people did not like Jonah's people.

Oh, watch it's talking to me.

Those people did not like Jonah's people.

So now God wants Jonah to go to people that don't like his people.

Those are evil folk.

Those are folk that skin the women and the children, and they do all kinds of stuff.

I mean, this is like equivalent to a Jewish rabbi during World War II going to the streets of Berlin, Germany, and preaching against the Nazis.

At best, this doesn't make sense.

At worst, this is a suicide mission.

But here's something that Jonah didn't realize is that God's purpose is always greater than your perspective.

Jonah's like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Uh I don't know about this God.

Those Assyrian folk, those those are evil people.

Those Assyrian folk, they don't like my people.

Those Assyrian folk, they they're not my friends.

This is hard.

And I think one of the hardest parts of following God's plan is a lot of times, in our perspective, God's plan doesn't make sense.

In our perspective, it's God, why would you want me to do this?

In our perspective, it's like, God, why would you allow the medical diagnosis to happen this way?

In our perspective, it's God, how come I didn't get that job?

Because that job was going to be the job that was going to give me security.

From our perspective, it's like, God, why did this happen this way?

But God's purpose is always greater than our perspective.

And it's in the times when God is doing something outside of our perspective that we need to remind ourselves that I don't always understand God's plan, but I can trust God's heart.

It's kind of interesting to me.

It's actually kind of funny.

Maybe, maybe not.

God never asked my permission for his plans to take place.

God never consults with me and says, Hey Nate, is your perspective in line with me?

Your perspective's in line with me.

Okay, then I'm gonna go ahead and do it because it makes sense to you.

God doesn't God doesn't do that.

God doesn't consult with us.

Be nice if he did.

And when God's plan is different than our perspective, here's what our instinct is.

Our instinct is to opt out of God's plan.

See, when God's plan makes sense, I'm here for it.

But when God's plan doesn't make sense, he's asking me to do something uncomfortable, he wants something different.

The natural inclination is for us to opt out.

This is what Jonah did.

Look what verse 3 says of verse number one.

It says, Jonah got up to flee to Tarshus from the Lord's presence.

He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshus.

He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshus from the Lord's presence.

Now it's if you think about Jonah was okay with part of God's plan.

Jonah was okay with being a prophet to the nation of Israel.

In fact, 2 Kings 14 tells us he was a really good prophet.

He was okay with this over here, but he was not okay.

He was not okay with going to Nineveh.

In fact, what he did, instead of going to Nineveh, he went in the complete opposite direction, 1500 miles away.

Look at this, look at this.

Nineveh's over there.

Tarsus, literally at the end of the known world.

My guy took the longest vacation package available.

He says, I'm here for it.

And isn't it fascinating in the text that there was a ship that was right there ready to take him away from God's plan?

You know, it could be easy to justify choices that we make because we were like, well, uh, it must have been part of God's plan.

It must have been what God wanted because uh, you know, uh, this person just came across my path.

This person just asked me to do this thing.

I had this opportunity.

This was right in front of me.

It must have been God's, it must have been God's plan for me.

And can I say, friend, that there will always be a ship ready to take you to Tarshis?

The ship in Jonah, chapter number one, was right there, ready to take him away from God's plan.

And there will always be a ship that's ready to take you to something that's more comfortable, to take you to something that's easier, to take you to something that's outside of what God's desires and what God's plan is for your life, and what can happen in our lives is we can justify that and we can say, Well, it must have been God because it was right there in front of me.

Opportunity does not mean that this is an opportunity from God.

Open doors does not mean that this is God's will.

And sometimes it's not bad, sinful things that keep us away from following God's plan.

Sometimes it's good things that keep us away from following God's plans.

A couple years ago, there was a there was a big church in Orange County, and they were like, Nate, we want you to come be our pastor.

Big church, and they're like 10 minutes from the beach and all this stuff, you know.

I was like, no, I'm not gonna do that.

And they reach back out to me, come on, Nate, like just pray about it, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff.

I mean, it's 10 minutes from the beach, you know.

I mean, in many ways, it was pretty pretty much dreamed setup, just being honest.

And if I would have taken that good thing, what it would have been is it would have been a ship to Tarshis.

Because what I'd have been doing is I'd have been following a plan that was more based on comfort and based on security and based on ease of life, then it would have been about doing God's will and God's plan for my life.

Because God's will and God's plan for my life is to be the pastor of first Christian church and to be a part of what God wants to do in our church and this city and this region.

That's what God's plan is.

And sometimes in life, what's gonna happen is there's gonna be comfort and there's gonna be opportunities and there's gonna be ease.

And you can take that ship to Tarships, and maybe there's nothing sinful about those things.

Unless God has a different plan for your life, unless God has something different for you and a different desire and a different dream that He wants you to walk on.

And God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh.

God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh, but there was a ship ready to take him to Tarsus.

See, Jonah didn't exactly fully 100% know everything that would happen if he went to Nineveh.

And I think part of the hard, hard thing about following God's plan is we don't always know how it's gonna turn out, do we?

If we're honest, we can say, if I follow God's plan, am I gonna miss out on this right here?

If I go this direction, I don't really know exactly how everything's gonna happen.

If I go this direction, I'm really gonna have to trust God.

And I'm gonna have to like give something up.

If I follow God's plan, I'm gonna have to give up control.

And none of us like giving up control.

God, I'll follow your plan if everything makes sense to me.

God, I'll follow your plan as long as it lines up with my perspective.

But God's plan is greater than your perspective.

God, I'll follow your plan if I can very clearly see what's gonna happen at the end of the road, and there's a nice rainbow at the end of the road.

But Frank, can I say that God has a track record of proving himself faithful to people that trust him enough to follow his plan?

In the book of Daniel, when Daniel was praying, when nobody else was praying in the kingdom, and God's plan took him to the den of lions, and God closed the mouth of those lions.

God was faithful then because a man followed God's plan.

That God has a track record of faithfulness.

And there are things that God wants to do on the other side of us following his plan.

There are prayers that God wants to answer for you.

There are prayers and things God wants to do in your family, but those only happen as we follow the plan of God and know that God's plan is often greater than your perspective.

And when you can't understand God's plan, friend, you can trust God's heart.

Jonah opts out of God's plan.

And you would think if Jonah opted out of God's plan, then God was probably like, all right, go to Tarshus.

See you later.

I'm gonna get somebody else to go to Nineveh.

Jonah, I don't need you.

I'm God now.

Look what happens to Jonah in verse number four.

Look how God's love pursues Jonah.

Y'all get that?

How God's love pursues after Jonah.

It says, but the Lord threw a great wind into the sea and onto, and such a great storm arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break apart.

Can you imagine that kind of a storm?

Now, we California folk, a little bit of rain, we like lose our minds.

This is this is such a storm, the ship's about to break.

The sailors were afraid.

Each cried to his to his God.

They threw the ship's cargo into the sea to lighten the load.

Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and fallen into a deep sleep.

My dude is taking a nap.

He must be a deep sleeper, for there would be a storm that's happening, and he's not even waking up.

Skipping down to verse 14, it says, So God, so they called out to the Lord, please, Lord, don't let us perish because of this man's life, and don't charge us with innocent blood.

For you, Lord, have done just as you pleased.

Then they picked up Jonah.

They threw him into the sea.

And the sea stopped its raging.

The men were seized by great fear of the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

Verse 17: the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah.

And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Here's something that we we learn about God from this text.

You know, growing up I had heard this text preached before, and this is about how it went.

If you disobey God.

Oh, also, it was done with a pointy finger.

If you disobey God, he's gonna get ya.

He's coming for ya.

Can I just pause for a second?

Can I just say the great fish wasn't God's revenge on Jonah, it was God's rescue of Jonah.

I'm gonna say one more time.

Some of y'all need to write this down, okay?

Taking notes.

By the way, there's a special place in heaven for all my note takers, right?

The fish wasn't God's revenge on Jonah.

The fish was God's rescue of Jonah.

What God could have done, God could have said, okay, Jonah, you want to do things your way?

Go ahead, run to Tarshus, do your own thing.

I don't even care.

I'll just raise up somebody that's not such a knucklehead and I'll let them go to Nineveh.

But God, in his mercy and his love, he went after Jonah.

He went after a prodigal prophet that had turned to God.

God wanted To do a work in Jonah's heart, and at the end of the book, when Jonah ends up going to Nineveh, look what Jonah says about God.

He says, I knew, I knew, if we can get the next verse on the screen, I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God.

Slow to anger and abounding in love.

God wanted Jonah to learn that Jonah could trust him.

God wanted to do surgery on Jonah's heart.

God wanted Jonah to develop compassion and love for people that were different than him and looked different than him and even didn't even like his people.

God wanted to do something in the heart and in the life of Jonah, and ultimately, everything that God asks us to do is not about what God is asking us to do, but it's about what he wants to do in our hearts.

Some of us were in a place where like, God, I don't, I don't want to do this, I can't do this.

But we're also praying that God would grow our faith.

Some of us say are saying, man, God, this this doesn't really make sense to me.

No one else is doing it, but we're also praying, we're saying, Lord, use me.

Some of us are praying and we're like, man, I just want to make a difference.

Like, I want to sense your presence more in my life.

Show me how.

And God's leading you on the plan, and we're resisting it because the plan is different than your perspective.

And when you don't understand God's plan, you can trust God's heart.

And could it be that the plans that God has are the answers to the prayers that you're praying?

And we're resisting the plan.

Jonah ends up going to Nineveh, and there's a massive revival that happens.

But even arguably a greater revival happened in Jonah chapter 2.

Jonah 2 · chapter mention

When Jonah chose to opt into God's plan.

It says Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish.

Ain't that an unusual place to pray?

I I've prayed in different places.

I never prayed in the belly of a fish.

I called to the Lord in my distress, and he answered me.

I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol.

And you heard my voice.

Jonah has run to Tarshus.

And in the belly of the great fish.

You could read the rest of Jonah chapter number two.

He opts into God's plan.

Some of us are wrestling with God's plan because we know what God's plan says, but it's just difficult.

We know that God's plan is for us to forgive.

And you're like, I don't know.

Guys, there's a purpose in the plan.

Here's the purpose.

So you won't live your life in the prison of bitterness.

Some of us know that God's plan is for us to selflessly serve others.

But we're like, I don't really know.

God's plan is for you to experience what it looks like and the joy that comes with living a selfless life.

Some of you are like, man, I can't, man, I can't commit to serving like twice a month.

Are you kidding me?

That's crazy.

Same person that every night of the week you're ready for your next Netflix show to come out.

It's priorities.

Same person that when it comes to football season, you ain't gonna miss a football game.

But you can't be, you can't commit to signing to serving twice a month in God's local church.

What is it?

It's not opting into God's plan.

If you'll opt into God's plan of trusting Him in a season of suffering, instead of giving up, you will see your faith deepen and strengthen like nothing else.

If you will opt into God's plan of being financially generous, you will see that God is a providing God.

And these won't just be other people's stories, but they will be your stories.

If you'll opt into the plan of making Jesus known to your friends and your family, you can literally change the trajectory of somebody's eternity through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I'm talking about the people of God that say they know God, like opting into the plan of God for their lives.

And a few weeks from now, we're gonna have a friend day.

That's right.

That's right.

She's got some friends.

That's good.

And here's our heart, the ushers will give you some of these on the way out.

Here's our heart for Friend Day, that you will opt into the plan to make Jesus known to your friends and family.

It's gonna be August 23rd, that you'll opt into the plan.

You'll say, Lord, what is the plan that you have for me?

Can I just encourage everybody in the room this morning to opt into whatever God's plan is for you?

Because God has a purpose in the plan.

God has a purpose in the plan.

And when you don't understand God's plan, you can trust God's heart.

And every one of us in the room, we have our own Nineveh.

Every one of us in the room, we have the place, we have the thing, we have the mindset of where God's plan, where God wants us to go, where what God wants us to do.

And some of us we find ourselves, we're on a ship that's going to Tarshis.

Maybe we're right at Joppa, we're ready to board the ship.

Can I just say, friend, don't board the ship?

Opt into God's plan because there's a purpose in the plan.

And God's plan is greater than your perspective.

And when you don't understand God's plan, you can trust God's heart.

So here's my question for us this morning.

Will you opt into God's plan?

What part of God's plan are you ignoring?

Are you resisting?

Or are you fighting?

Can we just be honest in the room this morning?

How many of you would say, hey, there's been a time in my life where I have either ignored, resisted, or fought God's plan?

How many of you would say that?

How many of you how many of you like me?

You lift up both hands.

We lift up both hands, and it depends on the season.

So here's what I invite you to do this morning.

I'm gonna invite you to pray a prayer to the Lord.

And it's very simple.

It's a prayer of opting into God's plan for your life.

And it's this it's Jesus, I trust your heart even when I don't understand your plan.

Your purpose is greater than my perspective.

Give me the courage to trust and obey you today.

Your purpose is greater than my perspective.

Can we do this?

Can we all stand to our feet all around the room?

In the balcony.

And I'm gonna lead us in a lead us in praying this prayer to the Lord.

And maybe for some of us, I'm gonna invite, if this is your heart, if this is the posture of your heart that you would pray this prayer.

Maybe for some of us, we need to physically do something in response to this.

Maybe it's like Lord, hands up.

Maybe for some of us it's hands extended.

Maybe it's something else.

But if this is your heart, would you pray this prayer with me to the Lord?

Here it is.

Let's pray this together.

Ready?

Jesus, I trust your heart even when I don't understand your plan.

Your purpose is greater than my perspective.

Give me the courage to trust and obey you today.

Can we pray that prayer just one more time?

Thinking about the Nineveh in our lives.

Thinking about the place in our lives where God is leading us.

Thinking about the things that God wants us to do.

Can we pray that prayer one more time?

So, Lord, let's do this.

Ready?

Jesus, I trust your heart even when I don't understand your plan.

Your purpose is greater than my perspective.

Give me the courage to trust and obey you today.

And today we opt into God's plan, and today we choose to follow Jesus.

We choose to follow Jesus.

I ask Mason to lead us in this song.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

And let's sing this heart, this prayer, this songs of worship as a prayer, as a declaration to the Lord I have decided to follow Jesus.

Let's sing it out together, Mason.