My Story // Bailey Alexander

Welcome to the Refinery Church Sermon Podcast.

We're so glad you've joined us today.

Our prayer is that this message will help you grow in your pursuit to love and follow Jesus for life.

If you'd like to learn more about the refinery, find ways to get connected, share a prayer request, or explore resources to help you grow deeper in your walk with Christ, visit us online at refineryohio.com.

Now let's dive into today's message.

Good morning.

Thanks for being here.

It is uh truly, as just to I guess reiterate what Megan said, I I just am so thankful uh to be able to gather in this way.

Um yeah, what a beautiful time of worship.

I I don't get the opportunity, and I guess I don't give myself the opportunity to worship from the front row very often, but man, I'm just so thankful for Megan and Leanne and uh their leadership, giving me the opportunity to just worship here.

I wanted to play drums, honestly.

When I saw like the when I saw the song tomorrow, I was like, maybe I could play drums, but I let Sean do it instead.

He did awesome.

That's great.

Uh if I haven't had the chance to meet you, my name is Bailey Alexander.

Uh I'm the worship pastor here, and uh I've been here for almost 15 years.

And September will be 15 years, and I'm super thankful for this place.

Uh my wife Sarah and our two kids, Camden and Kenley, um, they're in Chicago, actually, hanging out with uh Sarah.

Sarah's parents go here too.

Sarah and Jessica, sisters, both married worship pastors.

I don't know how that worked out.

So when we visit each other, it's usually, it's usually their whole family minus my brother-in-law Adam comes.

And when we go there, it's usually them minus me.

It's like, uh, we we need to find a way to get these Sundays to match up where we both can take it off.

But that's what they're at.

But if I haven't had the chance to meet you, I'd love to meet you uh and uh get to know you.

Get to know you, it'd be awesome.

Before we jump into the message, so if you haven't been here for a baptism sundae, it's it's a thing that we love around here.

We we see baptism as an outward sign of an inward change, right?

So it's it's when you if you've asked God to be Lord and Savior of your life and you want to get baptized, like we want to celebrate with you.

And so if you made that declaration, or um, yeah, if somebody you know, let them know.

You can scan the QR code, get signed up August 23rd.

It's gonna be a great Sunday.

I'm excited for it.

Uh, and who knows, maybe, maybe some of you in here will get to get to celebrate with you.

Uh but don't be afraid of that.

It's gonna be a great, it's gonna be a great time.

Uh this, so if you don't know, I'm not the lead pastor.

I guess I told you I'm the worship pastor.

Uh, our lead pastor, Landon, he's been on sabbatical for July.

And I've talked to him a couple times.

He's doing great, and he is anxious to get back here.

Uh our youth pastor, Drew, said that he signed up to like take the kids to the water park or whatever.

And and he's like, you're not supposed to, and uh, okay, well, he's do whatever he wants, apparently.

So he's like, he's so anxious to get back here in a good way that he's becoming a youth pastor again or helping with youth again, which is not surprising, also.

Um, but yeah, so next Sunday, August 2nd, he'll be he'll be here, he'll be preaching.

And I know he's gonna be fired up um to get back.

So uh during this time, while he's been gone, we thought it'd be neat to find some different ways to fill the platform.

And so we decided to do this my faith story.

And if you weren't here week one, we did more of like a morning of worship through music, through scripture, and through testimony, and had some people share um just bits of their story and what God's doing in their lives.

Week two, Pastor Jay was here, uh was up here preaching.

He shared a little bit of his story.

And last week, our our founding pastor, Pastor Brad Coaches, was here, and he shared about his story, but kind of how it how it aligned with uh starting this church.

And here in just a little bit, I will actually pick up where he left off.

But um as we jump in, I told I told Sarah, she texted me this morning, she's like, How are you feeling?

And I was like, honestly, more prepared than I possibly could be, but more nervous than I should be.

And I think it's because it's just my story.

Like it's a little bit more of like, you know, stripping off the layers to be able to let some people in to my story.

Um but I hope that I hope that we all can walk away with something to grow in our relationship and our knowledge and our understanding of the Lord today.

So, question for you.

How many of you, how many of you know how easy it is, or maybe you feel like it's easiest, or maybe you feel drawn to leave when things get hard or uncomfortable or just plain tempting?

I think that we live in this culture that preaches this idea that hey, if things just go wrong, or if it feels uncomfortable, just just leave.

We're always, it feels like people are always looking for the next step, right?

The big promotion, the bigger stage, um, the easy exit ramp.

And as I've said, and as I'll say uh throughout kind of the message, our lives don't have to be defined by our disobedience.

I think we can allow our lives to be defined by some of our disobedient moments, but they don't have to be.

However, those disobedient moments, they can hinder our lives for a time, and they do have consequences.

And let me just tell you that if we had four or five hours today, we'd talk a lot more about my disobedient moments, uh, but we don't have that much time, nor do we have any of that capacity to like take that much disobedience uh at one time.

But my life has had a lot of disobedient moments.

I was telling Jay, I was like, this morning will be more of like uh Instagram version of my life.

It's only the highlights.

Uh, and and so if you don't know, that person you follow on Instagram that has the perfect life, it's just it's just the highlights.

That's what today is gonna be.

My life has had many disobedient moments.

Um, but I realize looking back, like the things that really defined how my life has unfolded, especially through Christ, has been marked by the obedient moments.

What I've learned in kind of writing through this, it was one of these things where I wrote this at the very end when I was going through my writing process, and I I was like, I need to lead with this.

Because when tensions rise or things get uncertain, in our humanness, our our immediate human instinct isn't to endure, it's to escape.

I was called out the last time.

I only I only speak like two times a year or so, so this is special for you people.

Uh doesn't happen very often.

Uh I guess you can decide how special it is.

But the last time I spoke, I didn't I didn't say anything about sports, apparently.

I was called out.

They're like, hey, the this guy was like, normally you say like something about like your favorite team or whatever, and that sort of thing.

Um and if you don't know, if like I I love sports, if you don't know much about me or need to know something, like I love golf, and I follow very closely the Ohio State Buckeyes and LeBron James.

And if you want to talk about LeBron later in the 76ers, we can do that later.

Now's not the time.

Now's not the time.

Uh but but we can talk about it later if you want.

So, and I saw I see that we have a couple non-Ohio State fans in and tune out for three minutes and we'll come back to you.

But when I thought about enduring, when I thought about taking the easy exit, my heart just went right to the 2024 Ohio State Buckeyes.

Uh, and if you don't know, they won the national championship.

Um but literally at the end of at the end of 23, at the end of 23, you have all these, you have all these, they have all these goals that they want to accomplish.

And none of them are accomplished.

They don't, they don't beat the team up north.

They they get it's kind of a gross game against Mizzou.

And so you have all these guys who have the opportunity, they're at this kind of massive crossroads where they're like, I can go to the next thing.

The NFL's calling me.

A lot of them have draft grades, they can go get that money now.

And essentially what you have uh are millions of dollars in NFL and coming back to college, which means they do have to like take classes.

Whatever, whatever, however deep you think that goes, uh that's up to you.

But they do have to take some classes, I guess.

Um but these contracts were sitting right in front of them, and I think had they had all these guys left, nobody would have, except maybe us Ohio State fans, would have really like bat an eye at it.

We wouldn't have blamed them for moving on.

But instead, something kind of crazy happens.

Instead, Jack Sawyer sends a text message out to these guys, and they're like, hey, are we running toward these, like, are we just running toward these personal goals and just running away from the goals that we said we wanted to accomplish?

And one by one, nearly a dozen future NFL players turn down the money for the NFL and declare we have unfinished business.

And uh and yes, they were paid also.

Also, go look at the Texas and Oregon both had bigger uh contracts for their teams that year than we did, but I I digress.

Um, but as you so so what happens is it it even even in the midst of feeling like, okay, we made the right decision, they lose at Oregon.

They come home as 20-point favorites, they lose to the team up north, and it's like fire Ryan Day, blow it all up, change the colors, let's just start again, you know, like that sort of thing.

And what happens?

They end up back to back to back to back games, beat top 10 teams and win the national championship.

I didn't say first service.

The other cool thing for for us who follow Christ is God got to be put on display.

Now, I think also, I think uh Riley Leonard, the quarterback for Notre Dame, uh, I thought it was cool in the national championship.

Also, he had this Matthew, uh I forget what it was, but a Matthew scripture.

Like it was just really neat in 24, seemed like Ohio State and a bunch of other teams got to put God on display.

And I think that was really neat.

But I think not to put not to make Ohio State or sports more spiritual than it is, because it's not that spiritual.

They understood a principle that I think we often will forget in life or the kingdom of God.

Success isn't found in running to the next big thing.

It's found in executing your assignment right where you are until the work is done.

And I would say it's executing your assignment that God has given you and that God has placed you in.

And when I think about this for my story, so I need to like on our Refinery Creative podcast, I need to just do like a my testimony, my story, because we don't have that much time either.

But I I was raised in the church, my mom was my worship pastor, and so I was used on stage a lot, I play a lot of instruments, I sing, and um, but I still didn't know, like I was also I was also in a band that traveled a little bit, and so I was excited about I wanted to be a musician.

I wanted to be, I I at one time I even wanted to be an uh in-studio uh session player.

That way I got to play tons of instruments and help write music and do that sort of thing.

Um and so as a 16-year-old, that's I'm still trying to figure these things out.

But in 1999, um, yes, do the math.

I was born in '83.

Yes, these jeans are me trying.

Okay.

I'm trying to do my best to stick around the teens all left, or else I feel like I'd be getting like an umk uh status up here.

However, I will say, my what these jeans, when I bought them, I noticed the tag said 90s cut, and I was like, that feels right.

That feels good.

Uh but in 1999, 16 years old, and uh myself, uh just like a leader from the church and two other two other teenagers, we all went up to Toronto.

Uh there was a a revival, it's called uh the Toronto Blessing.

And we wanted to go up there and see what in the world was going on up there because it was sounded wild.

There was a bunch of wild stories coming out of it.

Uh, you'll have to deep dive if you want to on the Toronto Blessing.

Uh it's also wild, like there's also a lot of negatives, so it's it was kind of a weird thing for me, like four years ago, to go through some of the wild, poor, bad things that came out of it, and like how that works out with my life.

It's kind of crazy.

But I was there for one night, I got prayed for by someone I didn't know, and the Lord spoke to me.

So we're on our way back home from Toronto.

It was just a up there and back, same day sort of situation.

And I'm in the back seat with a guy who's actually become a mentor of mine, Matt, and he's a couple years older than me.

Now he's a pastor in the vineyard church up north in Cleveland.

And I was like, Matt, I sat there and wrestled for a while.

But it's a five-hour trip, so we have time.

And I was like, Matt, how do you know that the Lord has spoken to you?

Like, how do you like how do you know?

And he's like, Well, that's a funny question because I feel, I feel like the Lord told me to tell you something.

I was like, okay.

He's and so he's like, What do you feel like the Lord spoke to you?

I was like, I feel like the Lord said that I'm called to worship ministry in the church.

And he said, That's exactly, that's exactly what the Lord told me to tell you.

That was an amazing moment.

But also it started going like, okay, well, what do I do?

You know, like how do what where do I go?

What do I go to school?

Do I do, you know, I didn't know yet.

In the meantime, like six to eight months later, my mom, worship pastor of our church, and my dad went to Hillsong Church in Australia, and they attended the Hillsong worship conference there.

They come back with, and they have all these VHS tapes, by the way.

It's not, I said the teens back there were like, what's a VHS tape?

And I was like, oh, if only you knew.

Be kind, rewind.

Um there any any blood?

I thought I heard that there was one blockbuster still left.

Is that true?

Yes, thanks, Ben.

What's that?

Alaska?

Of course it would be like Alaska.

Um or Hawaii.

It would be like one of our outskirt states.

Um so truly, they came back, they're all jacked up, they're so excited.

And so I'm watching all these VHS types and learning from Darling Check as she's as she's teaching, and Joel Houston is teaching.

And in the midst of one of these, they're like, there's a Hillsong College.

And it's just a promotion.

Like, hey, if you are, if you feel called to ministry, you want to be involved in worship ministry or evangelist or whatever, come to Hillsong College, all these things.

So I'm I'm excited, my parents are super excited that I'm excited about it.

And I deep dive into um, I deep dive into getting ready to apply to Hillsong College and apply for my visa.

And I'm looking into all these things and all these logistics to move across the globe.

But as excited as I was, every time I talked to someone or thought about it, I wasn't really even praying about it.

As I as I thought about it, I got really nervous.

And to be honest, looking back now, older, being older, it was just a deep-seated unrest in my spirit that I just couldn't shake.

I tried to brush it off.

I think I just tried to tell myself, well, you're just nervous because you'd be moving across the globe to a place you don't know, to people that nobody knows who you are, right?

But what I realized is that God was disturbing my comfort because my plans weren't aligned with his placement.

Around that same time, I'm a senior in high school now, and I got asked to go help lead worship play guitar down at Grove City Church of the Nazarene and for a night of worship.

And at the end of the night of worship, the worship leader and the band leader said, We would love to offer you an opportunity to come an intern here.

Um, and I was like, Okay, well, I'm going to Hillsong College.

Don't know if you've heard of it or if you've seen that VHS tape, but uh, you know, it's like I remember like I imagine I immediately I think I was like night kind in the moment, but on the way home, or when I got home, I was like, I'm not going to Grove City like I'm going to Australia, right?

Um, everything in my flesh wanted Hillsong.

I wanted the big stage.

I wanted to record on those albums.

I wanted to use that platform to be a launch pad for my own ministry, whatever that may look like.

And what I realized now, like Australia for me was glamorous, and Grove City was just like a grounded place.

It was Ohio.

I just was ready for a change.

But I remember I told my parents, I was like, I need to just get away.

My parents, uh, oh, by the way, if my mom's watching, happy birthday.

Just realized, just remember that.

Uh I did text her.

I did text her this morning.

No, I just remember just now, again, that's her birthday.

Uh, but I think my parents bought me a hotel room like a couple cities away, and they're like, yeah, just get away and pray.

And I was in this battle of trying to figure this out.

My I think this battle between my personal ambition and a God's divine assignment.

Uh but in the midst of it, I realized that Grove City is where I need to be.

I was I decided to surrender my dream of Australia and took the obedient path to Grove City.

And let me tell you why obedience is why it matters, but also it gives us this opportunity for hindsight in general.

I guess disobedience does as well.

But looking back now, had I chased my own desires and gone to Australia, I don't think necessarily something bad would have happened.

I think that God still would have used me and all these great things, but I wouldn't have rekindled a friendship with Sarah Scott, who ended up being Sarah Alexander just like 10 months later.

We moved fast in the Alexander household.

Sarah and I knew each other.

I was in ninth grade, she was in tenth grade, and we were friends, and we were on this district choir thing that we traveled and played music and sang at different churches.

But like we would never dated because she was afraid that I was like too much of the cool band guy, and I was like, she's way too hot and doesn't want to talk to a guy like me.

Uh, and then years later, found out we were both just dumb and should have just started a long time ago.

We would have saved ourselves some hurt.

But looking back now, God was like, God was, I think, saving me for that moment to rekindle my friendship and relationship with Sarah.

I wouldn't have Sarah, I wouldn't have Camden, I wouldn't have Kenley.

And so, I don't know, I think God didn't withhold Australia from me to punish me, he redirected me to Grove City to bless me.

And so that brings us to I didn't want, I I didn't want to, it this to just be like story time with Bailey, uh, because my stories are not that great.

So I was like, I want to, I wanna I want to dig into scripture in some way.

And I just I just kept coming back.

I had a bunch of different ways that I could have gone.

I kept coming back to Jonah.

And let me just say, Ben Cannon, former youth pastor here at the refinery, still goes to church here, joining my team, by the way.

Thankful for you.

If you want a deep dive and a really good teaching lesson on Jonah, go to our refinery YouTube page.

Ben did that a few years ago, um taught on Jonah.

It was so, so good.

So mine is again, I feel like mine's the Instagram version of Jonah, but if you want like the real version, go go go you know check out Ben's uh Ben's sermon.

So Jonah is faced with the kind of the exact same crossroad, but in a in a different way.

So let's look at Jonah.

It Jonah 1, 1 through 2.

This is how the story opens.

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

God said, Go to the great city of Nineveh, preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.

Let me tell let me kind of set the scene on on, because I felt like this is this will help us understand why it was so important.

And what God was asking Jonah was really crazy and really difficult.

Nineveh's the capital of the brutal Assyrian Empire, which is Israel's most ruthless enemy.

Israel, this is this is God's sovereign nation, this is God's people, right?

So, what God's asking is that for Jonah to walk into enemy territory and offer this path of mercy, asking them to repent and choose God.

It would have been uncomfortable, it's dangerous, and completely contrary to Jonah's personal desires.

And look, just one verse later, here's what Jonah did does.

Verse 3 says, 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.

Quick understanding here.

So Nineveh's roughly 500 miles east by land.

That's where God's calling Jonah to go.

Tarshish is 2,500 miles by sea out west, literally the furthest known point in the opposite direction.

That's what Jonah's trying to do here.

And as I said before, our lives don't have to be defined by our disobedience.

However, it can hinder our lives for a time and can have, and usually does have, consequences.

And with that, I was looking into Jonah's story, especially just like Jonah chapter one, look at these consequences of disobedience that I kind of saw.

But I think that it helps set us up for success as we move forward in our own lives.

Disobedience always costs you.

Verse 3 notes that Jonah paid the fare.

So it's a good reminder that when you run from God's assignment, you will always pay your own way.

And usually that ticket is more expensive than you think.

Disobedience, number two, disobedience puts others in danger.

Sometimes what we choose can have a negative effect on others.

Jonah 1.4 says, God sent a great wind, causing a storm so violent that it actually was ready to rip the ship apart.

And while these sailors were terrified and crying out to their own gods, Jonah's just chilling in the bottom of the boat, having a great time, while these guys are fighting for their lives.

He's numb to the chaos that his disobedience has caused.

Number three, disobedience leads downward.

I just thought it was interesting.

Jonah went down to Joppa.

He goes down into the ship and eventually, after being thrown overboard in verse 15, went down into the depths of the sea.

So here I do want to pause here because something that I'm willing to die on.

That fish was a whale shark.

Think about it for just a second, because it couldn't have been no, don't laugh.

Because it could have been, you can't be like, well, it was a blue whale.

It's the biggest mammal.

Mammal, not fish.

It was a whale shark.

I'm telling you so much.

Have we talked about this?

Yeah.

Thank you, man.

It's something like it's something that I will die on.

That and sneaked.

If you don't know, you know.

Now you know.

We can talk about that too later.

But uh so a whale shark, they're huge.

Also, it's like in my like things that I want to do in my life is to swim with a whale shark, which is difficult because I'm terrified of the ocean.

Also, I don't really like to travel.

If you see me in pictures traveling, my wife made me do it.

Once I get there, I'm having a great time, but it's usually not up to me.

I digress.

So this is what this is what Jonah is dealing with, though.

I mean, his disobedience has all these like this like domino effect, and now it's affecting the people that he's closest to.

Some that he doesn't even have any sort of relationship with, and he's negating doing what God has asked him to do.

And there is nothing but pain and hardship when we decide to disobey God.

And this leads me back to my story 20 years later.

This is where I'm gonna pick up where Pastor Brad left off.

And in 2019, so we're coming off of, let me set the stage that Brad didn't share and he won't mind me sharing.

I don't think.

I'm sorry if you catch this later, but um we're coming off of in our church, Brad had served here for a long time and hadn't taken the sabbatical.

So he gets, so he takes a sabbatical, and it does not go well.

He falls or does something at the very beginning of it and ends up having to have full like shoulder surgery or replacement or something like that.

And so all these things he had planned for rest and to get away can't happen because of that.

And then he jumps right, so he comes back.

We encouraged him, I saw, we encouraged him to take another one.

He was like, No, I have all these ideas.

Uh and so he's like, we should change our name from Life Point to Refinery, and he had all these great reasons why, and I'm thankful that we did.

But essentially, you have this guy who needed rest and didn't get it, and then jumps right back in, he's burning at both ends.

And so that that is one of the things that helped helped to lead him to um hearing the Lord say, like, hey, I think it's time for you to step away.

And so, picking up where he left off, his decision to resign and step down, um it suddenly I found myself as the longest tenured staff member here at that point, like eight years or so.

And because I have a lot of FaceTime on stage leading worship, a lot of people knew me and then started to lean on me.

And I, you know, I took, as I say this, know that I took on personally, like in my mind, I took a lot more weight than I think I actually had.

Um, so whether that was a spiritual thing or not, I'm not exactly sure.

But I just like it just seemed like all those hallway conversations that Brad used to take, all of a sudden I started catching them.

And then like the weird emails about marriage stuff or or conflict or issues are like, why don't we change, I don't know, why don't we change this?

I'm like, I don't know, why are you emailing me?

It's because he's not here anymore.

You're the next guy to listen to my complaints or whatever it may be.

And I think completely to be completely honest with you, I just felt overwhelmed and I was exhausted and honestly just annoyed.

And so two weeks into October, that's when that's when um Brad resigns or officially is gone.

First week of December, I get reached out to by a buddy of mine who serves at a church on the east side.

And he's like, hey, so he doesn't know that Brad, he doesn't know that our pastor's gone, too, which I think is crazy, uh, which kind of leads, actually kind of bolsters my situation here.

He's like, hey, I uh our church is going to launch a new campus, another church, this is wild and amazing, another church gave us a building.

And so we're going to launch a second campus, we're growing, it's all good things, and we need to um we need to hire specific people for this.

And you're the first person I thought of for to be worship leader and help with life groups, kind of like a dual role, help with life group leadership, um, which I did here for a while, not very well.

Thank God we have Jay.

Praise Jesus.

Um, I was not very good at that.

Stay in your lane.

So he's laying this all out.

In the meantime, as he's talking, I'm like, okay.

Uh it's all making now, it's like literally, think of if you put yourself in my shoes like it's all making sense.

Brad leaves.

I am in this like unrest, new job opening.

And also, whenever we do hire a new pastor, he could bring his own staff or bring his own worship leader, which means I'm out of a job anyway.

God is prepping me ahead of time.

I'm I'm super excited about it.

And so uh I'm thinking a fresh start would be amazing, and this will be an easy exit for me.

So I come home.

I still remember I like I went over to New Albany, like we met in New Albany, and it the church is not in New Albany.

Stop trying to be sleuths.

Um, so I'm driving home, I have a 25-minute drive, and I'm like, this is awesome.

I'm not praying about it, I'm just jacked.

I'm like, Sarah's gonna be so excited.

And so I come home and I'm laying it all out, and Sarah, uh, she's not one to be quiet too, but she's just being quiet and she's listening, and I'm like, this and this, and we get to do this and pack your bags.

And she's like, well, you can go, but I'm not.

And I'm just like, which, if you know Sarah, you also could be like, yeah, that sounds like her, but like 25 decibels louder than when I just did.

And um I'm like, no, no, no, uh, I don't think you're like catching me.

And I was like, I I I remember I was like, pray about it.

And she's like, you pray about it.

And I was like, well, maybe I will, you know, like that sort of thing.

Uh and sure enough, I started praying about it.

And it was just like I kept coming back to, I there's a reason I told these two stories because I kept feeling the way I felt when I was praying about Australia and Grove City.

And I was like, okay, something's not right here.

And so I have a lot of time before the Lord.

And I had told him, I was like, hey, let's, or he was like, hey, let's meet again in like a couple couple weeks, right before Christmas.

I'm like, okay, and so I'm I'm spending time in prayer.

Now I'm like actually like, okay, I have to put things away.

My flesh is like packing my bags, but I need to I need to take time with the Lord.

And as about as clear as I've ever heard the Lord speak since 1999 when I received my call to ministry, he said, if you walk away from this position, you will be walking away from um, you will be walking away and be in in direct and deliberate disobedience from where I have called you.

You will be sinning against me if you decide to do this.

And I'm like, yeah, but it's a church too.

Like you guys are on the same team, like that sort of thing.

I was like, I remember just like arguing with God, but like I'm like, we're on the same side, right?

And he was like, No, like you will be in disobedience if you decide to do that.

Your assignment is here, and you're not done here.

I had to make that hard phone call to um to my friend, and I lay it all out and I tell him what the Lord said, and instead, I feel like instead of being like, Well, why don't you let's meet back up in January, or why don't you pray about a little bit longer?

He responds with, if that's what the Lord is telling you, then you have to listen and obey.

And looking back, first of all, I can't imagine if I would have knowing what we know now, like I didn't know in December of 19 that COVID was coming.

And looking back now, in 2023, they decide they're no longer gonna do the second campus thing.

They're going to build on to their main campus, and they ended up having to let those staff that they had brought on for that second campus go.

And I was like, man, can you imagine like God?

Thank you, God.

Thank you, God, that I decided to obey this time.

Thank you, Sarah, that she was so blunt and was like, you pray about it before you just start packing your bags.

I'm thankful that I didn't go to the grasses greener trap and didn't fall for that.

And trust the Lord, stayed right where he called me.

Fifteen years later, right, all those things, and maybe another five, ten, we'll see.

We'll see how these genes go, and we'll see what happens.

Finishing up with Jonah, though, from inside the fish, Jonah prays to the Lord his God.

He says, In my distress, I called to the Lord, he answered me.

From deep in the realm of the dead, I called for help, and you listened and heard my cry.

Aren't you thankful?

Not only that God hears us and goes with us at all times, but it just feels like in some of our deepest distress, he shows up in very real ways.

This is how Jonah fishes his prayer in in verse 7 and verse 9 of chapter 2.

He says, When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayers rose to you.

In verse 9, what I have vowed, I will make good.

I will say, salvation comes for the Lord.

And immediately in verse 10, we see that the Lord makes the fish whale shark uh spit Jonah onto dry land.

And he says, like, we'll go to Nineveh.

Tell them this story.

And this time Jonah obeys.

He walks into Nineveh, preaches God's warning, and look at the result.

Verse 5 and verse 10.

The Ninevites believed God.

I think how wild that must have been for Jonah to be like, oh, whoa, you're gonna do it?

And they're like, yeah, thanks for telling us.

A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented.

He did not bring on them the destruction that he had threatened.

The one little deep dive I did want to share that I thought was really interesting, this putting on a sackcloth.

So a sackcloth would have been a coarse, scratchy fabric, usually made from goat's hair.

It was, and what this stood for was an undeniable public declaration, declaration of deep grief, of humility and surrender.

These people, the Ninevehites, by trading their normal garments for this cheap, uncomfortable hair cloth, the Ninevites were stripping away their social status, using the physical irritation to mirror the inward contrition and treating Jonah's warning like a funeral for the entire city.

When everyone, it says, right, uh says, from the greatest to the least, put on the sacloth, right?

When everyone, from the king on his throne down to the lowest citizen, they all put on the sacloth.

They all surrendered, they all fell in line with what Jonah was preaching for God.

It signaled that an entire empire had dropped its pride, had acknowledged its brokenness, and had placed itself completely at the mercy of God.

An entire city of over 120,000 people were saved.

And this is why I think it's important that we always like we are whether for from your family to your job, your school, whatever it is, your neighborhood, this is why this is why I share it and bring it up often, that we would always be prepared to share what God's doing in our lives because you never know what he might do and who he might save.

That person that's in your life that you're like, I mean, they would never.

Don't give up.

Don't give up on them.

Jonah, so catch this.

Again, Ben went deeper and I loved how he what he did.

I'm just gonna share a very, very small part.

Jonah 4, 1 through 3.

But but to Jonah, this seemed very wrong.

It seemed wrong.

He became angry, he prayed to the Lord, I knew that you're a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abundant love.

I've lived that out.

That's what Jonah's saying.

Now, Lord, take away my life, for it's better for me to die than to live.

And you're like, we what what did we miss chapter three and a half?

What happened here?

Jonah goes out, sits under a plant on a hill, he's ticked off about all this stuff.

He's pouting because God actually spared his enemies, because God actually did what he said he was going to do.

And God confronts Jonah, asking why he cares more about a shade plant than the 12, the 120,000 lost souls.

And this is my point.

Jonah was deeply flawed from beginning to end.

At the beginning of the story, it's verse 3, he's like, I'm good.

And at the very end, he's like, What's wrong with you, God?

Why did you do what you said you were gonna do?

Jonah is a deeply flawed person from beginning to end.

Even in his moment of greatest ministry success, his heart is still wrestling with God's grace.

Looking at Jonah's story, looking at my story.

This is what, this is what I hoped that God, this is what God's been doing and teaching in me, and I hope that you would catch.

God's not looking for the person who is always perfect to be used for his plans and purposes.

He longs for us to say yes when asked, but when we say no, when we disobey, to be willing to realize that, to repent, and understand that we've fallen short.

Abraham lied out of fear.

Think about some of the amazing people in the Bible that God has used in such mighty ways.

Abraham lied out of fear, yet his obedience in leaving his homeland defined him as the father of faith.

Moses made excuses at the burning bush.

He lost his temper.

Moses killed a dude, and yet his obedience in confronting Pharaoh set the nation of Israel free.

David fails morally with Bathsheba, yet his genuine repentance and his obedience on the battlefield defines his legacy.

Peter's one of the Jesus' 12 disciples that has walked through his ministry time.

Peter denies Jesus three times.

And yet his surrendered yes on the day of Pentecost births the early church.

Your flaws, your moments of disobedience do not disqualify you from God's purpose.

Your refusal to say, your refusal to obey does.

Your flaws do not disqualify you from God's purpose.

Your refusal to obey does.

And right now, maybe God's asking you to say yes.

Maybe you even said no or you were in a disobedient moment yesterday.

Today's a great day to say yes and to obey.

So the crosses are gonna come up, and we we went, uh we started, you know, a couple times a month having prayer partners, and really the point for having Kevin and Miranda up here is like maybe you're today, you're like, I just would love to pray with somebody.

Uh and maybe maybe you want to pray right where you you are, that's awesome.

Maybe you want to pray at the altar with your spouse or with your friends, do that.

But if you want someone to pray with, they're here.

But I want to I I want to just kind of finish with these three questions.

Have you been waiting to be perfect?

Okay, once I get all these things lined up, then God will.

Or maybe when I maybe maybe when I actually do like surrender this thing, then God will.

Before you step into what God's actually calling you to do, stop, stop waiting.

God doesn't call the qual dot God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies those who simply will say yes and be surrendered.

Number two, are you sitting in your own Tarshish?

Or maybe you're eyeing that easy exit because your current assignment got hard or frustrating.

It's time to turn the boat around, if you will.

It's time to repent, reset, and turn back toward the placement God put you in.

Or maybe number three, where is God asking you to step out in profound obedience today?

It may be big, it may be small.

They all matter to God.

If he's calling you to it, it matters deeply to him.

And so today might be a great day to say yes to whatever that obedient moment is.

I'm gonna leave you with this.

Don't trade God's purposeful placement for a comfortable exit.

He's ways are higher, he knows more, and maybe he's saving you from, protecting you from.

You don't know.

And that's difficult.

You don't know.

I talked to somebody after after first service who's like, man, it took three years for me to realize that I should have been obedient in this space.

And he's like, it's not that those three years are wasted, but what what would God have done during those three years?

You know, that sort of thing.

Maybe is a maybe today's a great day to just say yes.

The breakthrough you're praying for in your life, your family, your career, whatever it may be, I believe is waiting on the other side of your simple, surrendered yes.

Let's pray.

We're gonna have um, actually, if you just want to just keep playing, that would be awesome, even just for a couple minutes afterward.

Kevin and Mirando will be up here if you want to pray with some, want to pray with someone.

Um, but I'm gonna pray.

I hope you have a great Sunday.

Go get your kids.

You can bring your kids back in to pray if you want.

Um but we're just gonna kind of leave this in a prayerful state.

But I love you guys, appreciate you.

God, thank you.

Thank you for your word to help teach us, to help direct us, to help us see, you know, whether it's through the story of your son or whether it's through the story of someone like Jonah, uh, to maybe even see farther than we could just see with our own eyes and be able to learn and grow.

And so we thank you today for your word.

I'm thankful for your spirit that's closer than anything we could ever ask for.

And God, I pray for anybody in the room and and even in this moment, I pray for myself.

If there's something in my life that I haven't surrendered, if there's something in my life that you're waiting on my surrendered, yes, God, reveal it to me in this moment.

I pray that we would not look past the calling that you've put on us.

No matter how big or how small, God, it matters deeply to you.

We love you.

I'm so thankful for this church.

I'm thankful for the ways that we get to put you on display outside of these walls.

And I'm thankful for other churches in the area who are doing the same.

We are just one small portion of your church.

We love you, we praise you, and it's in your name I pray.

Amen.

Have a great Sunday, friends.

Thank you so much for listening to today's podcast.

If you're ready to take a next step in your faith, please reach out to us through our website, refineryohio.com, or you can email us at office at refineryohio.com.

We hope you have a blessed day.