Radical Response Required

Seated. I found a pick, I'll give it to you. We've been in a series called not Jonah, not Jonah. And then my wife told me last week that we had a person whose kid was named Jonah. And I just want to be abundantly clear: that's a great name, that's a great name for your kid.

So when we say not Jonah, you might have to explain that to your kid if they heard it. It's not that we don't like them, it's that we don't really appreciate this guy. We love of the word, but Jonah in the Bible is the embodiment of the opposite of what we should do. And so we've been in this series the past several weeks and we've talked about a bunch of different stuff. If I were to boil it down for you, I would.

I would pretty much just say we're talking about obedience to God in the direction of his calling. We started off a couple weeks ago talking about Jonah, who's a prophet called by God to go to the city of Nineveh, which is a great City in the eyes of God, to preach to it and encourage it to repent, otherwise the Lord's going to destroy that city. Jonah does not want to do that, so he goes the opposite direction of God's calling, goes to a land of tarses, doesn't make it. The boat is battered by storm after storm after storm. There's a group of people on this boat.

We like to think they're serap phenician Sailors. What that means is they are pagan, they don't believe in Yahweh, the one true God. And Jonah's stowed away on this boat. They find him. They find out that Jonah follows Yahweh, the God of land and sea, the one who is sending this storm and putting them, them, in this predicament.

Jonah says: hey, it's my fault. They try to keep them on the boat, but they can't. He tells them to throw them off the boat. He sinks down Into the Depths and is provided for in the form of a fish. God sent him a fish.

He's in the belly of a fish for three days, three nights, and then the fish spits him out on dry ground and at some point later, God calls Jonah again- we serve a God of Second Chances- calls him again to Nineveh, and Jonah goes this time. Last week we talked about what Jonah did. He started preaching and walking through the city of Nineveh. Now, Nineveh was three days journey to walk through it, according to the text, but Jonah goes one day. We don't know how long he actually preached, but based on his attitude-, I preached a message that he really didn't go the full extent of what God would call him to.

He goes one day. Chapter 4 tells us he goes outside the city and sits to watch what God will do to the ninevites. On the other hand, we see this group of ninevites. It says that they believed, and I want to read to you the text for today, starting in Chapter 3 of Jonah, verse 5: the ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sack cloth, which is what you did back in the day if you were fasting.

That's just. I could give you the whole background to it, but picture that burlap sack that you jumped in when you were a kid to have like sack races. Picture that, flip it over, cut holes in it, put your arms through it. It's essentially what they look like: sackcloth. They put it on themselves to signify that they were repenting of their wicked way and turning toward God, says this: verse 6: when Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne.

It made him move, took off his Royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. This dude's on it. Verse 7: this is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh by the decree of the king and his Nobles: do not let people or animals herds or flocks taste anything, do not let them eat or drink, but let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.

Who knows God May yet relent and, with compassion, turn from his Fierce anger so that we will not not perish. When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened got. Speak through this text today. Help us understand the radical nature of your calling on our life. Let it be reasonable to us to serve you today.

It is in Jesus name we pray, Amen. Let me give you some context. In general, Jonah is interpreted in two major ways. Yes, there's a lot in between, but Jonah is interpreted both historically and allegorically, or as a parable. Now, if you believe it's historical, as a scholar, what you say is what it says.

There is what happened in the 8th Century before Jesus. There was a man named Jonah, a prophet. We saw this dude in Second Kings as well. This Prophet was called by God to Nineveh and he preached the Gospel or the good news of God to Nineveh. They repented and the fish thing happened.

All that stuff. That's historical. I believe Jonah is historical the other way people interpret it, and some of them are like me. They interpret it both ways. Both can be true at the same time.

Some interpret historical or Parable. That's not what I do. I don't think that's very helpful. But a lot of Scholars interpret it as a parable and what that means is maybe what happened in the text is like completely historical, but they say what's more important is the point behind the text. The point of Jonah is not just that a guy got swallowed by a fish.

It's that he didn't honor God's calling on his life to do what God called Abraham way back in Genesis to do, which is go unto the Nations. You're going to produce, children, and those children are going to be a blessing to the Nations. That is what your people group is going to do. They're going to be a blessing. Yet Jonah and the people of Israel are not living in that calling.

So those Scholars that interpret it as a Parable, interpret it through the lens of the greater history of Israel. That says they were not obedient, and so this is what God says to those who are not obedient to his calling. So you can interpret Jonah two ways: you can interpret it as historical and you can interpret it as a parable. I think both are extremely crucial to your understanding, because Jonah was not just for the 8th Century. Jonah was for the New Testament.

Jesus utilizes Jonah to give them the exact opposite, or the antithesis of who he was. He says he talks about the sign of Jonah that he was in the belly of a fish for three days and three nights. Jesus utilizes Jonah to communicate to the Pharisees who he's not and who he is called to be. Jonah is relevant to you. God has given each of you a big calling, and when we go the opposite direction of our calling or when we are stepping into our calling but we're not, we're not all into that calling, we're not radically into that calling like we can learn from Jonah as well.

So just to be clear before you leave here: I believe it is historical. What is amazing about this is I was reading an archaeologist who actually found, a part of the Assyrian Empire. There was a period of about 8 to 12 years where there was they ceased their violence, they ceased their western expansion, Westward Expansion, and there was a period of 8 to 12 years where there was somewhat peace and you didn't hear too much out of the Assyrian Empire. I think that's amazing and it test is a testimony to the truth of Scripture that God did speak to the king of Nineveh, because a lot of people are like it's just a parable. No, no, no, it's not just a parable, it is history, it is fact.

It is true. We would do ourselves huge favor if we would look at God's word and see it as true and then try to understand what can be signif or what can add significance in addition to the historical. But if you only do the historical, you're going to be like a lot of people and they missed the point. You got to do both. You got to do both.

I wanted to give you that context because the king's response here it is historical, but there's also a lot of literary methods utilized here to help people understand the point. This dude responds radically to the message of Jonah. That is like super mid when, like: I Repent in 40 days, you're going to be destroyed. That's, that's the full extent of Jonah's message. But this guy responds the full extent of what I think you could even do to respond.

This guy responds- I think he resp, responds the way he does because he understands the stakes. He understands what's at stake in Nineveh. Here's the message you heard: repent or you're going to be destroyed. And the King hears this and when it says the nites believed God, that's what it means. It's like they heard that and they're like: what do we?

What? In 40 days, we're going to be overthrown. We got to do something about this. He hears it and actually believes what God is telling them and he responds about as well as you could. He doesn't know everything.

Right. I was reading this passage. I was like he clearly doesn't know God, because if he know God knew God, he would have known about Abraham. Abraham was this: he had a discussion with God about these two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. God wanted to destroy these cities and Abram had a conversation with God and said: no, you don't need to destroy this city.

And God goes back and forth with it's like: if there's only this many righteous, if there's only this many righteous, and they get to the point where God says: if there's only a few righteous in Nineveh, I won't destroy it, but then he destroys them because there's not even a few righteous. If this man had heard about Abraham and God's conversation, he would have said, okay, I will repent, I will respond positively and I'll try to find some people. If he knew the grace of God that we see with Israel, when they were LED out of the land of Egypt, there's this plague that we all know about the death of the firstborn. God is so gracious. He didn't make them change everything.

He made them put blood on their front door and then their kid would survive. That's the grace of our creator. We see the grace of God in the wilderness when the Israelites are still disobedient, and because they're disobedient, snakes start biting all of them and God says: you know what, I'm gracious? All you need to do is put up a bronze statue of a snake and if you look at that bronze statue of a snake, your snake bit's going to be healed. I'll forgive you in that fashion.

God is so gracious he actually doesn't require us to make crazy, crazy adjustments on the immediate for salvation sake. What is the message of Jesus? Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you will be saved. That seems pretty gracious of the Lord to send his son, Jesus, to die on the cross and offer me forgiveness of sins and then raised to walk so that I might live with resurrection power in my life. That's a good God, that's a gracious God.

But the king of Nineveh, he doesn't know this God. So this dude goes crazy, he goes radical, because the stakes were high that they would be destroyed. And as a king, he says: I'll do whatever it takes. Because he knew that in order to reverse the situation, a radical response was required. That's my sermon title for today: radical response required.

I think in your own life, and in my life too, I become so accustomed to living in. You might say it's not a Christian Nation, but at least it's is accommodating to my faith. You know a little bit like all of us can meet here today. It's accommodating like for the most part, my childhood was filled with people who at least said they believed in God. Some of them acted like, like.

It didn't look like they believed in God, but at least they said it. You know, they come out, come out of the woodwork during an election year and they're like Jesus. Jesus, I believe in Jesus. Don't take the Bible out of the school. Well, you took the Bible out of your home a long time ago.

Let's talk about that first. Right, but I, I didn't need to go there. I didn't need to go, but? But I'm also not agreeing with the other side. I love the Bible, I want the word in every aspect of our world, but we, because we live in an accommodating country, because we can kind of follow God at our own pace, we neglect to understand the true stakes in our lives.

We fail to understand how our Disobedience to God in small areas has a huge impact on our family. We have this idea that that we want to break generational curses because we hate the way that we grew up. Yet because we haven't radically responded to God, we're still operating the same way that our parents did, but we just say we didn't, or we make some slight adjustments, but since Jesus isn't in the equation, we're still propagating these generational curses. We have accommodated, but, but some things require a radical response. Look at your neighbor say you got to be radical.

Sometimes you got be radic. You did it. The rest of you. You need to turn to your neighbor and say you got to be radical. Sometimes, try again, try.

Oh, you got to be radical. Sometimes I know you felt like it was Radical to turn to your neighbor and actually say something out of your mouth with words to them. That's not radical, that's just normal, it's reasonable. But God wants you to have a radical response to him. He wants you to have a radical response.

He wanted the ninevites to have a radical response. And when we look at this King, he's like: all right, ain't nobody eating, ain't nobody drinking? I'm like bro, they got to drink. It's 40 days till destruction. Three days.

They GNA be dead if they ain't drinking. Right, like you. You better all put on sackcloth, flip them around. No more sack races. You're wearing them, stick your arms through them.

We all going to look dumb for the next 40 days. We going to figure this stuff out because we're going to repent. The stakes are too high for us not to make a radical adjustment to our violence, a radical adjustment to our ways. Sometimes a radical respones required. I think this king is a great example, we could go back to chapter 1 and see the same thing.

These people are throwing everything out the boat. They recognize that if we're going to survive, we got to get rid of all the stuff. And they get to Jonah and realize that, no matter what they get rid of, there's something that they don't understand. It's the character and nature of God. It's the fact that someone else living in OB Disobedience can have a negative impact on other people, but they're throwing everything away.

They don't know Yahweh, but they know they got to do something. How many of you know you got to do something? You might not know everything about God, but God's called you to do something. One thing I love more than anything is a bunch of people in a room who don't know really anything. Let's be real.

When I became a Christian, I didn't know nothing. I was like I was. I was walking with. What kind of made sense? And what made sense to me is that if I believed a dude died 2,000 years ago on the cross and when he rose from the grave he validated the reality that if I asked for forgiveness I could receive it.

And then I would SP ET like if. When I started believing in that I'm like, I feel like, and I'm not better than anybody else, but it just made sense. Sense to me. I didn't grow up in church. I didn't hear this stuff when I was a kid, so in e8th grade I'm like I guess it makes sense for me to put everything around Jesus, like if I believe that right.

For me, the only thing that made sense was a radical response. It's like: well, my friends don't like Jesus, yeah, but if he did what he said he did, then my friends didn't do that Jesus, yeah, my boss told me I got to work, yeah, but, but he also understands boundaries. And if, if you're good at what you do, then generally the world, world will be accommodating For Your Excellence. If you're excellent to the things that you've prioritized, right, well, but, but what about my family? They, they don't operate.

Well, they're definitely not going to operate if you don't change anything. I, I, I. I think a radical response from us is required, not in order to get saved, not in order to go to heaven, but in order for us to be who God truly called us to be. That is our sermon title, and I want to give you my first point because you're like: ah, what's the Practical steps for this, pastor Matt? The first one is what the guy does.

He issued a proclamation. You got to issue a proclamation and you might think, oh D, you got to say what you're going to do. No, when he issued a proclamation, everyone in the city knew that they had to do it, otherwise there would be a punishment or negative consequence to doing it. He issued a proclamation: don't touch food, don't drink, stop doing all the bad stuff you're doing I. It's not in the text, but I would imagine it's in there somewhere- and pray.

And then what you got to do is you got to wear this really bad piece of fashion. Everybody else is doing it. You might as well follow the trend. You got to do this and they knew that they had to, otherwise, like they would get in trouble. That's what issuing a proclamation does.

Now let me bring it home for you: issuing a proclamation in your life, obviously you're in charge of your own life in some ways. When I say issue a proclamation, I, I'm doing it in a similar vein to Joshua. In Joshua, chapter 24 and 25. He tells the Israelite people group, as they're entering into the promised land, he says: choose you this day who you're going to serve. And then he goes forward.

Joshua 24 · chapter mention

He says, as for me in my house, Proclamation: we will serve the Lord. As for me in my house, this is what we're going to do. You need to issue a proclamation. I'm talking to the husbands in this room who are operating beneath their calling. God has called you, to lead your family in a way that draws all of them closer to him.

And what I don't mean by this is: hey, do what I said, cuz the Pastor said it. I'm the man of the house. You got to. You got to do what I said. I want to go take this job, even though none of y'all want to.

You got to follow me. I'm the man of the house. That's not what I'm talking about. That's just weird chauvinism. That's not biblical, manhood.

Biblical manhood would say: I'm called to lead my family in the way of God. I'm called to issue a proclamation that me in my house, we're going to serve God. Me in my house, we're not going to allow that substance to enter into it. Me in my house, we're not going to do what everybody else does. Me and my house, we're going to prioritize Sunday we're going to prioritize time in the world word.

Me and my house, we're going to eat together once in a while so that we can pray and then talk about our dreams together, me and my house. I'm going to love my wife am okay, me in my house. That's a proclamation. You can make a proclamation outside your house too. This is what the king did.

He said: everybody, even the cattle, even the animals, are wearing sackcloth. Animals didn't do nothing wrong. They're sitting there waiting to get eaten. That's all they're doing. They're wearing sackcloth too.

They don't eat nothing. They're going to be skinny steaks. But at the same time, we want to follow Jesus or God. Yeah, cuz Jesus. You know, they didn't know him, they didn't even know God.

He's figuring out what to do, he is making a radical adjustment and he issues a proclamation for you when God calls you to make a radical adjustment. Sometimes you got to issue a proclamation because you might feel like you want to follow Jesus right now, but then you get home and the rest of your family is like: man, I hate that you're gone for 4 hours every Sunday. Man, why can't we go do this, this, this, this, this, so and so? Invited us to do this? Why do you read your Bible every morning?

Why? Why do you? Like, why do you do this? Why do you do that like? When you go home after feeling the conviction of God, if you don't issue a proclamation, you're going to lack Clarity in your household, and when you lack Clarity in your household, you're going to get frustrated at the rest of your household for not following suit.

But you never issued a proclamation, you never told them. I'm not just talking to Men, I'm talking to women too. The sad reality in church these days is that the vast majority of people who come to church are women, and men aren't coming to church in droves. So often what happens is a woman will come and just be praying that their husband will come now. That often breeds resentment.

Now God would call you to serve first. Peter gives us a good example of this: , first, Peter would tell you to submit and serve, knowing that, you being tested in this area might one day convince your spouse to step in the direction of you. But what a lot of people tend to do- men, women and kids- is: they'll feel convicted, but go home, be distracted. They'll feel convicted, go home and be in conflict with somebody else. They feel convicted, but they're conflicted with so many areas of their life.

And when you issue a proclamation, what you were telling, all of those conflicts, all of those arguments, you're telling, all of those distractions and everything else, that to today I'm making a decision to move forward in specific areas following God. And when those things come in, since you've issued a proclamation, you don't even argue about it and I'm going give you some examples in a few moments. It'll be fun, but you've got to issue a proclamation. Many of us are struggling and frustrated because we never said anything, we never issued a proclamation. This man issued a proclamation in the city of Nineveh and everyone, from the adults to the kids to the cattle, had to make an adjustment because of that Proclamation.

When you speak the Oracles of God that come from his word into your life, that is issuing a proclamation. And when you speak God's word over the lies of the enemy, when you speak God's word over the? You know good intent, but false, false words of somebody in your life that may care about you but they don't know God, so they're not giving you the right things to do and how to operate. When you speak God's word into your life, it will change every aspect. That is what it takes in order to radically respond to God.

But if we do this the wrong way, we're going to be in a bad spot. We'll be similar to the person that Jesus talks about in a parable, where there's a man who cleans out his house, the demon was cast out and the demon wanders around seeking somebody else to hang out with, to, to, to devour their life and livelihood, but he can't find anywhere. So he comes back to the person and he finds that house clean. And when that house is cleaned, he goes in and the demon is comfortable. But because the person didn't live up to Effectiveness, because they didn't incorporate something better into the equation, that demon comes back and it's just as dangerous as it was.

. Let me tell you what the, the nvite king, said. He said this. He said in verse 8: but let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone urgently call on God.

My second point is to call urgently on God. If you don't incorporate God into the equation, you're just making radical adjustments that will never give you peace, making radical adjustments that won't give you salvation. You're making radical adjustments. That you know you keep doing. Until I don't know you get bored with it, that you'll keep doing.

But without God in the equation, you're just in as much trouble as you were before you Incorporated these new disciplines and radical adjustments. You got to call urgently on God. Call urgently on God. When God calls you to do something, he doesn't expect you to do it without his assistance. In fact, everything God calls you to do, he knows he's going to help you.

He helped, he helped get you to himself in the first place. You go in the opposite direction. Jonah was going the opposite direction, and God sent him a fish to get him in the right direction. God has always been in the equation, but the question for you is: are you going to invite him in? Are you going to call urgently on your creator in order to help you do the things he's calling you to do?

Are you going to call on God at all to help you parent your kidss? Are you going to call on God at all to help you with your marriage that might be mediocre right now? Are you going to call on God to help you be a better employee, to be a better leader or boss or employer? Are you going to call on God to help you in every area of your life? Something that the person who knows nothing about Yahweh, the king of Nineveh, understood was that if I'm going to make a radical adjustment, I'm not going to do it just with discipline.

I'm also going to call on this God that Jonah was talking about. You've got to call on God. He didn't know anything about Yahweh, but he knew if he called on him, that was the one who had the power, and when you call on God, you don't have to know everything about him. Amen. God wants you to call on him before you get your stuff together.

God wants you to call on him. It says urgently. Urgently. Urgently doesn't mean when I get time. Urgently doesn't mean when my kids get older.

Urgently doesn't mean, when the, the school schedule is up. Urgent doesn't mean when Summer's up. Urgent doesn't mean, I'm trying to decide how deep I want to go into this urgent. Urgent doesn't mean when you're through your honeymoon phase in your relationship with your spouse, Ur. Urgent doesn't mean, when my busy season's over at work.

Urgent doesn't mean, when I feel like it. Urgent doesn't mean, when it's cooler outside, urgent, I can keep going. I'm not going to keep going. But urgent doesn't mean what we say. It means we say I will win, but urgent means I will.

Now I'm going to call on God urgently because I recognize that if I'm going to have a radical response, which is required for me to live in my calling- if I'm going to have a radical response, I got to call on God CU. I can't do it without his help. The disciples were sitting there struggling with this food. They have Five Loaves, two fish. There's 5,000 people.

Let's send them back. Jesus is like: no, we can't send them back, we're not going to send them back. They won't return. If I send them back, I need you to keep them here, I need you to feed them. Here.

The, the disciples are struggling on their own, but the recog that we can all have in our faith is that God doesn't want us to do it alone. So, even if you don't have your stuff together, even if your resources aren't filled, call urgently on God and he will help you go in the direction that you're supposed to call urgently. Call urgently, call quickly, call immediately, like call on God. That's the same thing you do for your mom or your dad, when your, when your car is messed up. Same thing you do, with your family members when you freaking out on them because they didn't make curfew.

You know what I'm talking about. It's urgent, it's important, the stakes are high, and if we don't do what we're called to do, we're going to gosh, we're going, we're going to lack the peace that God wants to give us, and we're never going to live in purpose. I don't want to belabor these points, because I got a really helpful, I think, illustration: , for each of you. But we got to issue a proclamation, we got to call urgently on God because the stakes are high, and I want to play a game with you. This game is called radical or relaxed, because often our responses are more relaxed than I think they should be.

So I want to give you a couple of examples of what I'm trying to communicate here. In Nineveh, the response needed to be radical in your life in a lot of areas, I think it does too. So if everyone could like reach underneath their chair-, there, there's a bag under some of your chairs. Yeah, we want to do some case studies, and so I order from Amazon some little things that kind of looks like a case, but it's really just a plastic bag. I want.

It's trying to be cheap. You know what I'm saying? This is church Steward God's money. Well, if you have one of those and you're willing, I'd love for you to come up here. If you're not willing, give it to the person next to you who is willing to come up here and bring your bag.

There should be six of them. If you don't have one, look under somebody else's seat and, if you're bold, come up, give it up for him. Come on. Yeah, that's exciting. Oh, the stairs are over here.

Yeah, my bad, I should have told you guys this. My wife's like: don't use biblical illustrations that people don't know or without explaining it, and I'm like I didn't even explain the stairs. Oh, y'all good, I can help. I can help. Kaylee, you got one.

Look at you. This is Kaye. She's our kids person. What's up, boss? I feel like we're missing one person.

All right, we're missing one, it's okay. We can skip it. We don't have to, it's okay. Who's got case study one? All right, if someone finds one under their seat, we'll do number one.

I might just skip that one, unless it's number five or six, in which case I need it. All right. Oh, that's case four. All right, y'all get order. So we don't.

All right, one here, six down there. All right, I'm going to give you some case studies and I want you to determine whether their the response should be radical or relaxed. Y'all with me. Does that make sense? All right?

Here's case study number one: husband cheats on wife with family friend who lives on their street. He wants to keep his family together but is still in love with the other woman somebody- here's a relaxed response- apologize and seek forgiveness. It's going to take some time, but the husband thinks he can resist the urge to communicate with the other woman, work on repairing trust and make his family whole again. They own the house. They've got friends in the area, family there too.

A small adjustment is necessary. Here's your radical response: pick up everything and move to Alaska, make new friends, pay extra visit to f or pay extra to visit family in the future. Kids start new school. Husband changes his phone number and deletes the other woman's phone number. Just answer me.

Relaxed or radical response is necessary. Go you, help me out. The rest of y'all are like: I don't know I like my house. I don't know about my marriage, so we're going to figure this one out. It's a radical response.

I've actually had that happen. When I was early on in Ministry, this person invited me over to their house to pray for them. I had no clue what it was. I come in and I find out this is exactly what happened. I'm like yo, y'all should have told me that beforehand.

I walk in and I'm praying, husb husband sitting there. He's still in love with the woman. The wife is mad that it happened. I'm like: naturally, yeah, I get that. And then then they want me to pray over them.

I pray for him. A week later he comes up to me and he says: hey, you want some kayaks. And I'm like: what are you giving your kayaks to me for? I don't need kayaks, but I'll take them. Okay, I'll sell them.

He. I said: what are you doing? He said I'm moving to Alaska. And you know what? How amazing is that?

Because if you want to keep your marriage together, sometimes you got to do some radical adjustments in order to make it happen. This is not the time to be lazy, apathetic or chill. It's the time for a radical response: it's required. Let's go to number two. Who's got?

Case study number two: let's go all right. Here's an easy one. An employee receives a 90-day performance Improvement plan. That means they're going fire you after 90 days from their supervisor. Relax, get annoyed because your boss stinks, complain to your friends and family that the employee requires too much of you.

Look at the 90-day period and take your time. Start looking at new jobs, but only kind of pray that your boss will change their mind about you. Radical response: look at every detail of the personal Improvement or professional Improvement plan and go beyond what is expected. Go crazy to enhance your performance metrics. Bother your boss for continued Clarity, pray God would give you Clarity and maybe go on a full-time job hunt if it's not the right fit.

Radical or, relaxed: yeah, I want. I want you to keep your jobs in here. We're trying to help you guys keep your job. Radical and relaxed, all right. Case number three: your spouse brings up a lot of things that are frustrating them and gets emotional while they're doing it.

The relax response: sit back, relax, hear them out and practice active listening. They've got a bunch of things they want, they want you to correct and you can't get them all done in one day. Stay calm and respond with I hear you. Can we schedule some time to sit and talk about these items, item by item? Radical, since you're equally flooded emotionally.

Begin listing the things that bother you about them, to remind them that both of you contribute to the problem. Walk out and wait for them to chase after you, which they will if they love you. Radical or relaxed, relax, relaxed, just to be clear. This is a funny one. Yeah, case number four: the fam is going to be low on money for bills this month.

It was bad last month too, so the water is about to be cut off and groceries still need to be bought. Tithe isn't even in the equation. The relaxed response: it's going to be okay, God's got this. Haven't we been in difficult situations before? Let's just put it on the credit card and pay it off next month when I get my paycheck.

Radical cut Netflix, Hulu, Max, Disney Plus Peacock, Paramount plus Apple TV, Starbucks, clothing purchases. Get rid of car payment. Living with one car, not in a car. One car, . Pick the right gas station on the way from work.

Hop on Facebook Marketplace to sell stuff you don't need. Do a yard sale. Actually believe God and tithe. Let Mom live with you. Pray, pray, pray.

Radical or relax people- all right, was that number five? We got them all up here. I need number five, do we not got it all right? I can give it to you. I can give it to you, it's right up here, we got it.

Your child runs out into the street with oncoming traffic closing in the relax response: yo, hey, get out of the road. Wait to see if they listen. When they don't power, walk in their Direction, gently, take their hand and empathize with why they want to be in the street and urge them to walk back to the side with you. Relax, radical. Scream their name at the top of your lungs.

Run as fast as you can to the road while signaling to other cars to stop vigorously. Grab your kid and rip them back off the road while simultaneously making them feel the intens of the situation the whole time. Radical or relax people? Radical, cuz you don't want them to get hit by a bus. That's why someone in the last service was asking: hey, why?

Why is the relaxed one not good? It's because it doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't solve the problem. Let me give you case study number six, you got a person who struggles with anxiety, struggles to reach their goals. Their marriage is miserable or mediocre.

They're in financial distress. The employers mad, their employers mad at them. Employees don't follow them. They have few meaningful relationships. They don't know Jesus, so they'll probably end up in hell, as will those that that they love the relaxed responses.

Binge some Netflix shows to feel better. Drown insecurities with some wine coolers. Keep working hard to be better but not necessarily feel better. Think about how their life isn't fair. Wish they were in a different position.

Say, well, I guess that's what fate dealt me. Or the radical response: issue a proclamation to every part and every person in their life that things are going to change urgently. Call on God. Put on sackcloth, put their kids in sackcloth, put their dogs in sackcloth because, who knows, God May yet relent of the coming Calamity. This is the radical response that God desires.

This isn't for salvation, this is for your livelihood. God wants you to have a peace that surpasses all understanding. He wants to guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus, and in order to live in that, we've got to do what Paul says: to press onward toward this very difficult call. To consider all things is lost for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, to continually think on the things that are true, right on, able, pure, lovely and of good repute. To choose this day who we're going to serve.

This is what he desires for your life and it's not that he's just exacting from you. He asks this for your sake. Amen, because this is the solution to what this person is struggling with. You guys can step down, give him a hand, guys. Romans, chapter 12, verse one.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

I had to pull the nkjv version cuz that's the one that I memorized. He says: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your radical service. Is that what it says? No, it says reasonable service. It clicked to me a while back that he says: present your bodies as a Living Sacrifice.

The, the imagery he's utilizing here, is Christ on a cross. It's the disciples who all gave their life for their faith. He says by the Mercies. In view of the mercies, all the things that God has bestowed on your life, in view of all that God has done to bring you close to him, the natural, the reasonable response from you is to present your bodies as a Living Sacrifice. I want to give you my main point.

My main point is this: the reasonable response to God is a radical response to your world. The people in your life are not going to understand, but as you grow in your faith you're going to realize it is reasonable to follow God with my entire life. It's, it's the word there, logicos. It actually means rational, rational, like it is the rational thing to do, to give up every aspect of my life in order to pursue this one truth because of what Jesus offers me at the beginning of my faith. But the rest of my world?

It's like I go back and say heyy, hey, sweetie, we, we got to make Church a priority. We got. We got to adjust our schedules, we got to adjust the kids, sports, we got to do all this other stuff. So let's, let's make a radical adjustment. Why?

Because Jesus isn't important in our lives and this is what he called us to do. That doesn't mean you know what I feel like it's a struggle because for me, even saying that up here right now, I know that there's tension, coming out of my voice. There's the desire for me to qualify, because my gut tells me. Still, even though I've been following Jesus for 20 years, it's like yo, Matt, give them the qualifications, right. You can en encourage him to gather as Hebrews 10 would tell us to do.

That is a thing that God calls us to is to gather together in Jesus's name. Not only do we receive encouragement, but we embrace our calling by the body of Christ, which is God's church, and the way that you interact with God's people, which is the church, is at a physical meeting, right. So that's why we encourage Church. And I'm like: but God, that's pretty radical. You know, like everybody's got vacation.

Like you know, the employer call them said they got to work that day. Like God, that's, that's pretty radical. And every time that that I share something like that, I'll give a qualific, like my gut tells me to do that, because I know that the rest of the World Views radical. What God views as reasonable, it is reasonable for me. I go home.

I'm like sweetie, you know, like God calls us in Malachi 3:10 to trust him with the tithe, which is 10% of our gross income- to the local church, not because of what it goes to, but because he simply called us to be obedient. God called us to do that. And your world is going to look at that and they're going to say what yo, that's radical. But 20 years into time, tithing, I'm realizing no, I like you. Some people might think I don't have enough money to tithe.

Malachi 3:10

I'm sitting here like, like, I can't afford not to tithe, I can't AFF because it, because, as you grow, it becomes more reasonable. I could give you area after area after area, but I'd like to speak to the nuclear family, which is your home, that you're going to go back and your kids aren't going to want to go, or your kids aren aren't going to want to read the Bible with you around the table because you haven't been doing it for 20 years. Because this adjustment is radical at first but it is reasonable in the eyes of God. Like you might be speaking harshly to your wife or to your spouse in general, you might be- you might be living in a way that is unfaithful to your spouse and you're going to go back home and say the call of God says I've got to make this adjustment. Your spouse will appreciate it, to be honest with you, but it's still going to feel radical to you because your gut, your biology over the years and years of environmental conditioning causes you to respond with a harsh word, but Proverbs tells us to respond with a soft answer.

Right, these things feel radical, but they are reasonable. It's crazy to me that God would give us the radical response and call it reasonable. But I, I want to encourage you to issue that Proclamation that says, even if it's radical, it is reasonable with God, who I am calling urgently on every single moment of every single day, because in this guys, the stakes are so high like when we, when we started this church, we knew the stakes were high. Like we want to reach people for Jesus, the stakes are so high and when you, when you come here and you drop off your kids, the stakes are so high for those kids that they may get sent home with homework- not homework, we call it homework. Send them home with a Bible verse to memorize and you go home.

It's like they got homework during the week. Yeah, yeah, but like that that doesn't make them holy. Right, like what makes them holy is understanding more about who God is. Yeah, yeah, but they're busy with this. It's like I know we might need to radic or reasonably actually adjust our schedule.

If we believe what we say, we believe it like. We can have a radical response or a relaxed response, and I gave you those examples, because we all know certain situations require that radical response, and what I'm trying to communicate is the Bible would indicate that this one does, and there's some people in here. You've been hesitant to make this radical response to God: offer your life to him. U for whatever reason. Maybe you feel like you're not ready, doesn't matter how ready you are.

God wants you to call on him now. It might be that you know what it means when you follow Jesus. The fact that you know what it means means you know more than this nvi King, and it's time for you to look at somebody who doesn't know any better but is responding radically as an inspiration for how we live our lives, says: offer your body as a Living Sacrifice. And there's someone in this room. You need to make this radical step right now.

So if we could bow our heads and close our eyes, I'm going to give you that opportunity. We're going to pray this prayer together out loud, for the benefit of those who are praying it for the first time. The Bible says: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So that's why we pray this prayer. So repeat after me: God, I believe God, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

I believe he died on the cross and Rose from the grave, from. Forgive me of my sin, forgive me of my, make me a new creation, make me a new creation, creation, and I will follow you. And I will follow you all the days of my life, all the days of: oh, this kid is going to bring tears to my eyes right now. Oh, man, in a good way, man, I there's a, there's a text that says it's better for you to have a millstone wrapped around your neck and thrown into the ocean. Then, for you to be a barrier between one of these little ones and Christ.

And so for me, when I'm hearing that, that I'm hearing tons of people in this room, maybe more silently, confessing with their mouth that Jesus is Lord for the first time, and so I want to not be a barrier at all. I want to celebrate your move, your radical move toward God right now. Can we celebrate those people?