Jonah and the Whale

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

It is a good morning. I'm listening to them talk about

there being an abundance and overflow with tithes. And

I was thinking about growing up in my

mom and dad's church. Once a month we had, they would

do a. What was called a pounding for the pastor. It

means a whole different thing now, but

back then you would walk out and there'd be some

groceries on the steps of the porch or there might be a chicken casserole,

which you probably needed to be careful about eating. But anyway,

tithing sometimes looked different

out there where there wasn't much money and people would bring the little and then

they would bring the extras. And that was always such a blessing to see what

God was going to do. We are going to

open with just for a second. I want us to pray for Pastor Kevin,

who's still on sabbatical and I'm not bitter and.

But we miss him so. Father God, I thank you so much for our pastor.

I thank you, Lord, for this season where you've offered him rest. And I pray

that he get that. I said in first gathering, Lord, it would be

awful nice if he had a hammock somewhere where he could

just spend some time, Lord, in your presence. And I just ask that you cover

he and Shari and the girl. I just ask that you bring him that

back refreshed. We know when he comes back, Lord, he'll be up to something.

So Father, help us. In Jesus name, Amen.

That came out wrong.

Sometimes you just put the comma in the wrong place.

I have to tell you, I got tickled. Last week Pastor Allen

had shared, you know, he said, you know, in his benevolent

heart, he did not send in his request for

which book he wanted to teach on. And he said that he would sit back

and let everybody get it. And he wound up with Hosea.

And I saw nothing wrong with that. But anyway, I

just wanted Alan to know that none of us got what

we asked for, but what we

did get was what Pastor Kevin prayed about and

said, no, I think you are carrying the word for this one. And that's what

we always want, right? So I got Jonah

and

it's been so good and it's all for you guys.

And no, it has just been so rich. And

I'm so encouraged by what the Lord has to share with us.

And I love that God always has an

on time word. And

nothing has surprised him about this day, this

week, this month. Nothing has surprised

him. And he sends his word. To do what? To heal

his people. Amen. So we are going to stand up, we're going to read a

couple of verses, and then we are going to turn off the

slides and we are just going to dig into this for a

minute because I need a word from the Lord. Do you need a word from

the Lord this morning? That's what we're going to do today. We are going to

talk about being so much like Jonah,

so much like Jonah. And man, I'm owning that this

morning. To go, God, I see myself in these scriptures and I ask, Lord, that

you help me to overcome this. So let's read it. As Pastor

Kevin would say with gusto. The word of the Lord came

to Jonah, son of Amitti, go to the great

city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its

wickedness has come up before me. But

Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for

Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he

found a ship bound for that port. After paying

the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish

to flee from the Lord. Father. God,

help us. Help us, Lord, to see

ourselves in your word, Lord, and to see your instruction in the

Word. Father, this morning we're going to come under your truth. Father. God,

there's a whole lot of opinions and a whole lot stuff in the world right

now. But Father, what we need is your truth. And so, Father, that's where we're

submitting ourselves. Today I ask, Lord, that my

stuff fall and your stand. And Father, I'm asking for hearts that

are teachable. You said you would awaken our hearts morning by morning

to be taught of you. And today we have come to learn from you,

Father, settle us, Lord, I ask in Jesus

name. Amen. I find it so

interesting that Jonah.

Ah, Jonah. I look at

that passage of scripture and it says that Jonah decided to

flee from the Lord. And I just have to tell you, Psalms was

written before Jonah. And I'm Pretty sure the

139th Psalm says this, starting with

verse 7. Where can I go from your

spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If

I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed

in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I take the

wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even

there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will

take hold of me. If I say, surely the darkness will

cover me and the night will only be light around

me. Even the darkness is not dark to you and

conceals nothing from you. But the

night shines as bright as the day darkness

and light are alike to you.

You can run, but you can't hide. You

can run, but you can't hide. And we're good at running, aren't we?

We're really good at deciding that the word that the Lord has given us

is not the one that we wanted. And so it's obviously wrong.

I look at this book of Jonah. If you got your Bible, just go there

with me. It says in chapter one,

verse one, it says, now the word of the Lord came to

Jonah, the son of Amitti, saying, go to

Nineveh,

but Jonah ran away to Tarshish.

I don't like that word. That's hard to say. Tarshish. Say

it three times. No, don't. Tarshish.

So we're going to say that city. So they ran. He ran away

to that city. And actually, that's probably better anyway, because

there are a lot of places that we like to refer to as that city,

right? We look at it and we

go, the word of the Lord. He had a word from the Lord

and he ran. I mean, was this an audible word

from the Lord? Was this in the middle of the night, dream from the

Lord? It doesn't clarify that. But he had a word from the Lord. And we're

like, how do you turn away from a word from the Lord?

And he wasn't just, you know, he was a prophet.

He was a prophet of the Lord, and he

had a word from the Lord.

And we can look at that and go, what? But you see, Jonah only had

one instruction. We got the whole manual. We

got it all right here, the last Will and Testament.

These are the words he left for us. And there are instructions for

every single situation we may find ourselves in. And

there are instructions for how we comfort ourselves

and how we respond to situations, especially

situations that are hard and that we don't understand.

But it says that Jonah gets up early.

One of the translations says he got up early and

headed for Joppa, and he paid the fare

to get on that boat to go to Tarshish. Shush, shush.

He wasn't just, like, detouring just a little bit off the path.

He wasn't like, I'll go to La Verne and then the Lord won't be able

to see me over here in Smyrna. No, he

went so far. He got as far away from God as he could

possibly get. It is literally the mileage

from New York City to Los Angeles within about six miles.

He went all the way to the other coast. He's like, maybe

If I'm over here, maybe God won't see where I am.

Isn't that funny? But we do it all the

time. He can't see me

here in this mess that

I have paid good money to get myself into.

But it says he wanted to get as far away

from the Lord as he could get. Why? Because he didn't like the word that

he'd been given. And he had his reasons for not liking that word that he'd

been given. And we're going to talk about that a little bit. But if you

look down a little bit further, you'll find in chapter one

that a storm comes, a bad

storm. And everybody on the boat is

frightened and they're terrified, and they don't like this situation.

And I think it is so interesting that it says

all of this is going on all around. And Jonah went

to the deepest part of the boat and was sound asleep.

Sound asleep. You know what I do? I look at that and I go,

jonah knew the Lord. And sometimes when

we're running and we're trying to get as far away as possible,

yet we know the voice of the Lord. We have

this tendency to try and shut down everything on the

inside. If we can just buffer that voice for a little bit. If we can

just medicate that voice for a little bit. If we can just step

into this place where we can dull our ears. And enough

that we don't hear the correction or the call of the Holy

Spirit. So we go as deep as we can get,

and we put ourselves to sleep. Spiritually,

we do, because it's the only way we can go on in our

disobedience. It's the only way that we can do it.

And God hadn't forgotten

or lost sight of Jonah. Just as God has not

forgotten us and lost sight of where we are, whether

in obedience or disobedience in the planet,

God has not missed one thing. And

all of the men up there, they're all up, they're despairing

because it looks like they're getting ready to go down. Things look bad. You know,

sometimes when things look bad, we can panic and we can respond in a way

that we shouldn't respond. When what we really need

is to get to the core of the matter, right? And

so I actually really respect this

about Jonah. They wake Jonah up

and they cast lots, basically draw straws. And

the short straw falls to Jonah, and Jonah

fesses up. He said, it's me,

it's me. And there's something on the inside of us that

Holy Spirit of God that will bring conviction, that will cause us

to go, it's me. It's me. I'm in

disobedience. But then there's this other element here that takes place

that to me sounds like the Enemy because it says,

Jonah says, throw me overboard. You know,

sometimes when we've really, really messed up, when

we've really missed God, one of the things

the Enemy does love to do is tell us how bad we are.

And he wants you to despair to the point of death.

And he wants you to go, I don't deserve to live. I have messed this

up so many times. I have run from God, and now I'm

in this ditch and I'm in this mess, and I do not deserve to

survive this.

Throw me overboard. Throw me overboard. Let me

tell you the difference. The convicting work of the Holy Spirit

will go. Kurt, you missed it. Tina,

you missed it. But if you'll return to me, I will

return to you. If you will call on me, I will heal

you. There is promise in the convicting work of the

Holy Spirit. The promise of the Holy Spirit is, well, if you

will correct this, if you will allow me to change, if you will

repent, I will heal this area of your life. But the voice

of the accuser of the brethren, which is Satan, will come and go,

you're not worth saving. You are worthless.

You are pitiful. Nobody wants you to get out of this.

Nobody thinks you should be healed. And everybody sees what you have done.

You're not worth it. But you are

always worth it. God loves

you. God loves us. Even when

we are in the depth of the boat, when we've gone to so much

disobedience that we're still trying to hide. When that realization comes

of what's actually happening in our lives, it would be my hope and it would

be my prayer that we would go, God save me.

God help me. Not that we would despair of life.

He is a life giver. But here's something else, guys. You know what? I

see this

scripture says that the men didn't want to throw him overboard.

They didn't want to do that. They didn't want to be held accountable for this,

for his life. And

sometimes there have been

situations in my office where I'm

watching a family go down for the last

time because they refuse to release something

or someone that God has another plan for, that

God has a plan of rescue that maybe they can't quite get

under your roof or within your advice or

whatever. When you've done everything that you can do. Sometimes we have to release

things to God. We just have to go. God, I don't know what to do

here. But these men, they finally reach the point

and they're like, okay, we've got to throw him. We've got to throw him over.

We've got to let this go. But God.

But God. Can you say that? But God. But God. Now

look at this. In the very last verse of the

first chapter, it says, and I'm reading from the amplified

version, it says, now the Lord had

prepared, appointed, destined,

a great fish to swallow. Jonah.

Appointed, destined, prepared.

Guys, if he can appoint, prepare, and destine a fish, what do you think

he's got for you? What kind of plan do you think he has for

your life? I listened to Pastor Wayne sharing a few weeks

ago about God destining a woman on the other

side of town, a medical worker, to be in front of his house at the

very moment that he had his accident.

God prepared that. And I think about this fish being

on the other side of the ocean going, I don't know why. I just feel

like I need to turn left.

I feel like I'm just supposed to be over there for some reason.

Guys, pay attention to that. Turn left.

Whatever. God di. Unction. If he can prepare and

destine and send a fish, how much

more? How much more does he have

for you? And then this one cracks me up. I

so love this. Guys, you can't. As Joseph says, you can't make

this up. Well, some. Well, never mind.

Isn't this just like us? So much like Jonah.

Jonah. I gotta get as far away from the Lord as I can possibly get.

I'm gonna take my money and I'm gonna give it to these people, and I'm

gonna go with them over to the other side. We look for a group

to run with, don't we? When we're ready to run from the

Lord, we don't like to do it by ourself. So we will immerse ourselves

in people who are going in that same wrong direction. Don't you think?

I was telling the first gathering many years ago,

I vacuumed in

and I was

vacuuming a white rug, okay?

Everything else was a brown rug, and I was vacuuming a

white rug. And there on the white rug was a brown

penny. And I was able to see that penny and

go pick that penny up and vacuum around it. And me

being the master cleaner that I am, I tossed it onto the brown

carpet because I wasn't vacuuming there

yet. Then I turned around and I

couldn't find the penny. Cause it blended so

well with the rest. And sometimes

that's what we want, isn't it? We just want to go blend in with the

brown carpet for a while. We don't want to stick out like a

sore thumb in the middle of a white carpet.

Stick out, stick out. And

don't become deluded to think that you're actually part of that, because

you're not. You might be laying on top of it, but you ain't part of

it. And so

Jonah and his buddies, the ones going as far away from God as they can

possibly get. Now Jonah has been swallowed up by a predestined

whale. There's the quote for next week's Facebook.

And don't you know you find Jesus in the storm.

I titled this next portion whale song.

Yeah, because I'm just that warped anyway. But there he

is. He's drowning. He's in that water. And

who knows how long he's been in that water. It doesn't give us a time

frame. But Jonah finds Jesus because he

says, oh, Lord, my God. When my

soul was fainting within me, I remembered the Lord. You think,

I'm not making fun of Jonah. I'm making fun of all of us

because this is what we do. Everything's great. I'm having

a wonderful day. This is. Oh, and there's a storm. Jesus, I need you.

And then he says,

but as for me, I will sacrifice to you

with the voice of thanksgiving. And I shall pay that

which I have vowed.

The translation. Okay, I'll go do what you asked me to do in the first

place. That's the translation.

I love this. I was thinking about him

out there, you know, Jonah, let's get as far away from God as

we can possibly get. Hove him in the waves. Draw near,

oh, God, draw near. Send the angels, send the

trumpets. God, get us close. I need you, Jesus, to come to my rescue.

Suddenly we want him as close as he can get

right now. Let me show you what the grace. I believe

this is such a marker of grace

in the life of Jonah. Because in chapter 2, verse 10,

it says, so, Jonah. So the Lord

commanded the fish, and it vomited

Jonah up onto the dry land.

Now, see, God could have gone just Mr. Well, just ease up next to

the shore, open your mouth and let Jonah walk out, couldn't he?

But that isn't what he did. Why? Cause

sometimes our deliverance doesn't need to be pretty.

Sometimes when we're coming out of those situations and those hard places,

sometimes it needs to be remarkable. Sometimes we

need to remember why Proverbs 26:11 says, As a dog

Proverbs 26:11

returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to

his folly. And sometimes it might

take the smell of vomit to cause you to not go back there

again. Sometimes. You know,

one of my favorite quotes by Bishop Garlington was, I'm so grateful for

every time that God has delivered me in the privacy of my own

mind. But sometimes deliverance

doesn't look like that. Sometimes it shouldn't look

like that. Sometimes that day needs to be marked

to remember and not go back. Amen. Well,

I know that for me. And now it says

chapter three, verse one. Now, the word

of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, go to Nineveh,

the great city, and declare to it the message that I'm going

to tell you. And it says,

and Jonah got up and went straight way to Nineveh.

Picture it with me,

I'm going to Nineveh. I'm on it, God.

Straightway to Nineveh.

And Jonah goes to share this message

that the Lord has given him. And there's a part of me that kind of

wonders a little bit. See, Jonah didn't want Nineveh to be

saved. And he says that. He says, this is the whole

reason that I didn't wanna go. Why?

Because Nineveh was bad.

Nineveh was bad. They couldn't stand people

who didn't agree with them. They didn't like people who didn't worship their same gods.

If they had somebody come into their land that they didn't want there,

they cut off their ears and they cut off their nose and they would send

them back. There was human trafficking. There was

all kinds of sexual immorality. There were murders that says there were bodies in

the streets. They

were a people that

Jonah had decided weren't worth saving.

And isn't that just how it goes sometimes? We

pray God mercy for me and justice for them.

When God is going, what if I have compassion on

everybody? What if I decide? And

so Jonah, I'm thinking about this. He doesn't want them to be

saved. He is moving and going to do what he's called to do. You know,

sometimes we can go and be obedient and not do it with the best heart

that's possible. But it says that Jon went to the

heart of the city and he began to share the message that if you don't

repent in 30 days, this city is going to fall. And

it says that the people began to repent. It says

this it says, the king says, when the word reached the king of

Nineveh. This is verse six, chapter two. When the word

reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, he

tore off his robe, he covered himself with sackcloth, and

he sat in dust and in repentance. And he issued a

proclamation. And it said, in Nineveh, by the decree of the king,

no man, animal, herd or flock is to

taste anything. They're not even to drink water. They

must be covered with sackcloth. And everyone is to call on

God earnestly. And who knows,

God may turn in compassion and relent and

withdraw his burning anger.

It says in verse 10, God saw their deeds.

It says God had compassion and he relented

concerning what he had said would befall them.

But here's the thing.

Once we make up in our hearts who God needs to

judge, it's hard for us to let go of that.

And we'll justify it and we'll move in

that and go, lord, these people deserve mercy and

these people deserve judgment. But we don't get to make that call.

Because the word of the Lord tells me that he would, that none.

None should perish. None should perish. He's

not slow. He's not being held back by anything other than

his love and compassion for humanity.

And it's interesting to me because it says

at the beginning of chapter four,

it says, God had compassion in chapter three and relented

concerning the disaster he had declared. He didn't do it.

Then it says this, but it greatly displeased

Jonah. And he became angry.

He became angry how, Lord, you've seen

what they've done. You know the people's lives

that they've destroyed. You know the pain, you

know their wickedness, and you have had compassion

on them. I have to wonder if maybe the

smell of the whale vomit had dimmed just a bit in his life.

He wasn't as willing and as open to what God

had in that moment. But here's the cool thing. Well,

it's not necessarily cool, says Jonah does.

If you read the passage of Scripture, Jonah basically does what he did in the

beginning. He takes off to the outskirts of town.

He takes off to the outskirts of town and he sits down in the hot

sun. And I

will just call it sulking. That's the

Barbie amplified version. But he sits down in the

sun and it says he is angry to the point that he wants to

die because the Lord has had

compassion on these people that he's already formed

his opinion about and probably already had

Experiences with. And he was right. They

were wicked. They were bad. They had no morality to

them. They had nothing good

to recommend them. Except when

this king heard the word of the Lord, he did what Jonah

didn't do. He obeyed it. He

obeyed it. And the Lord had compassion on him. Now, this is

interesting to me. I'm gonna get the worship team to come out. Cause I'm going

to do this very long.

Jonah's sitting out there. God has had compassion on these people

that Jonah didn't want compassion extended to. Guys,

we got to constantly check our hearts. We got to

constantly check our hearts. Because we

judge and we pray down curses on people

that perhaps God is wanting to save. Maybe God's

wanting to do something here. And that's what we see. He even has compassion

on Jonah. Jonah's sitting out here in the dirt and the sun's beating down on

him. And the Word tells me that the Lord caused a plant

to grow up over Jonah and to shelter him.

And Jonah loved that plant. It brought him comfort.

And he loved that he now had a covering in that plant.

That was God's grace. His mercy

took. Son, that was acting out again.

But then it says this. The next morning,

the Lord sent a worm to eat the plant.

And it ate the plant. And once again, Jonah is

mad enough to want to die,

to want to die over this plant.

And God steps in and he says,

you will grieve and you will be angry.

This plant. But there are

120,000 people.

120,000 people. And one of the translations

says that doesn't know their right hand from their left.

They are innocent. Not because they haven't done anything, but because

they don't know. They don't know. And God says, you

are going to invest your anger and your frustration

in this one thing when the picture is much

bigger. The picture is much bigger than this

one moment, this one thing that's happening in your world that

casts away. You know what else it tells? This is just me.

But I'll look at this and I go, God basically gave

him 24 hours to sit in his mess.

24 hours to get over the fact that we

serve a compassionate God who would not that one would

perish, Even that one that wish would.

The God that we serve is slow to anger.

And he is compassionate. And sons

and daughters of God, and future sons and

daughters of God that we don't know what's going to happen. If God will turn

their lives around, if God will save them, what he will do. But what we

do have to have is a heart posture of compassion for

humanity. Not just part of it,

all of it. Because God didn't say

there are 110 souls, but those other

10,000. You just stay mad at them or you be upset with them.

No, God said, what if there's a bigger picture?

You grieve over the one thing

and grief is right,

but there's a bigger picture. There's a bigger

picture and we're not always going to understand it.

But what we can know is that we serve a very, very

good God. And he is compassionate

and he is slow to anger. And when people

repent, he does forgive them. So how can

we withhold that?

Here's the thing, guys, that was

120,000 souls we

have.

We have 8.2 billion people

on this planet, a majority of which don't know

their right from their left. The majority of which

that we attribute evil motives to. And they don't know Him.

They don't know Him. And it would be

my heart that we would search our own

hearts and find God's compassionate nature.

Because what the enemy wants is for all of us to rise up and be

angry, just like Jonah was angry, but it did not serve him well.

We find that at the end of the book of Jonah, there is no resolution.

It isn't as if Jonah says, oh, I see it, God. Everything is

fine now, God. And sometimes you just gotta sit

with the discontent while you're sorting through whatever

God wants to sort through in your life. Whatever heart posture that God

wants to sort through in our lives. But I know this much, he

wins. I know this much,

I know that God wins.

If we are going to rise up, let us rise up in compassion.

If we are going to pray, let us pray for the souls of the lost.

If we are going to be grieved in our soul, let us grieve that there

are people who are dying every single day and leaving

this planet without knowing Him.

Let our heart be like his.

Let us be compassionate.

8.2 billion people.

You know, it's not the end of the story.

Because in the book of Nahum, about 150

years later, those same people who had

repented that same lineage that

had given their hearts to God turned away and

Nineveh was destroyed. But I'm so grateful

for the 150 years.

God is a God of second chances and third chances

and fourth chances and fifth chances. And we want

all the chances for us, but Lord cut them off here.

But may our hearts be God of compassion,

have compassion on us and have Compassion

on them. That none would perish.

That none would perish. If you'll stand

with me,

this is what I believe. I know that there are some people that

are kind of that are just questioning this morning

and have pain in your hearts,

grief in your hearts. But what I'm going to ask you to do

is they're going to play some songs and we're going to just come into

the altar for a few minutes

and we're going to lay all that at an feet. All

of the things that go. God, I don't understand

God. And I don't. I. I don't understand. But

God, you are faithful and you are sovereign and you have a plan. And

Lord, just like with Jonah, there's a bigger picture.

There's a bigger picture. So we're going to dim the lights for just a minute

and we're going to sing. I need you, Jesus.

Give me Jesus. And if you have a place that you need to work out

in your spirit, it would be my prayer that when you get up from

this altar space, that

your heart would be for the 8.2 billion.

That your heart of compassion would see as

God sees. And that we would rise in our spirit

man and become intercessors and warriors

in the kingdom of God that speak peace, that bring life,

that bring truth. Because that's the only way they

know they're right from the left. It's the only

way is when the Lord uses you

to bring truth to a world. To offer

compassion to those who we've decided do

not deserve it. So, Father, that's what we're going to do. Do.

We're going to find a knee. We're going to

lean into you, Father God. And all of this, Father, all of the

rebellion, all of the things, Father God, that you see not just

in the world, but Father, in our own hearts. God, that you would

correct those. Bring softness back where the enemy wants our

hearts to be hard, Father. Bring compassion where the enemy

would love to bring judgment. And Father, I ask that you bring peace

where the enemy would love to bring turmoil. We are your kids,

not theirs. And so, Father, we come under your hand.

Prince of Peace. Prince of

Peace. Fill this place with your presence. I

ask in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen.