The Impact of Your Decisions

Yeah, yeah, what's up? Everybody good to see you. If it's your first time, we're grateful that you're here. We're working on our clapping for First Time guest. Can we just try that again?

Let's clap for few. Yeah, actually, I bet they got music stands back there. I'm going. Will someone grab me a music stand with me? Get a second?

Thank you so much. Look at all these people on it like, come on, guys, that's what I'm talking about. You want to take? You want to take an OCD guy? Put him in a Boiling Pot of water, bring me in here.

You should have been here at 5:00 am this morning. We realized we weren't getting stuff. I was like, oh no, this is not good. I'm going to get my month's worth of storage back into the bank account. I think I'm going to work on that one.

Anyways, I'm really not stressed about anymore anymore. I was people. People were walking up to me and they were like they. They were like it's okay, pastor mant and I. I told him.

I said I'm good internally. I'm like: thank you for saying that to me. I desperately needed it today. Man, it's our heart that people who come in for the first time that they would have an experience that they remember and praise God that you going to remember this experience today. If it is your first time, I do want you to know we take a lot of care.

I don't. I don't think the Lord needs any of the audio visual lighting production equipment that we utilize. I don't think he needs all the equipment that we purchase. He can simply speak to you through his word: amen, somebody. I don't think he needs any of that.

However, ever I think the Lord was good to us in packaging himself in flesh, dwelling, among men, sending Jesus, so that we would see what he really looks like and how he operates, and so we want to do our best for a first-time guest or people who are coming for just new to church, to give you a great distraction, free environment, . So while I'm not going to apologize for the situation today, I do want you to know that we do care about that, and so next week, if you come, if you like it today, it's going to be great next week for you if you have your Bibles. I hope that you do, because this is one of those days pastors always talk about. There's going to be a day where there's not going to be something on the screen and you're going to need your Bible. You can't see the screen anymore, so if you have your Bible or your phone, I would encourage you to open it.

To Jonah, chapter 1, and I'm going to read the passage for today, and I hope to talk to you a little bit about something that I think will be applicable to every single one of you, regardless of where you find yourself in life, and we're going to begin in verse 4. So, to give you context, Jonah has just fled from the presence of God to go the exact opposite direction. We found out last week that he went to tarses, which is a real place. We believe that's current or present day Spain, but Scholars don't know exactly where Tarsus was. So what they're saying in the text is he went the exact opposite direction, about as far as he could possibly go.

Jonah 1 · chapter mention

That's where Jonah is heading, and last week we talked about what it looks like for us to turn toward God in honor his calling on our life, and so we jump in verse four, and here's what it says, and it'll be a few moments CU. I'm reading all the way to verse 16 says: then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own God and they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep- sleep. The captain went to him and said: how can you sleep?

Get up and call on your God. Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish. Then the sailors said to each other: come, let us cast lots or gamble a little bit to find out who is responsible for This calamity. They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they asked him: tell us who is responsible for making all this trouble for us.

What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you? He answered: I'm a Hebrew.

I worship the Lord. Now the ver. The verse there says Yahweh, which is different from Elohim, which is how you might see Lord. In other contexts he says: I worship Yahweh, the God of Heaven, who made the sea in the dry land. This terrified them and they asked: what have you done?

They knew he was running away from the Lord because he had already told them so in his little, Soliloquy speech that he gave him 2 seconds before. The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him: what should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us? And you got a. You got a picture where Jonah is at here.

This is craziness. He says verse 12: pick me up, throw me into the sea, he said, and it will become calm. I know that this is my fault, that this great storm has come upon you. Instead, the men did their best to row back to the land this good good Phoenician Sailors here. These are nice people, but they could not, for the sea grew even Wilder than before.

Then they cried out to the Lord: now, this is Yahweh, this is not. Whatever their God, they were called, This is Yahweh. So when it's capitalized in Scripture l, r, d, that means it's translating Lord, but it means Yahweh. The Hebrew God says: please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man's life, do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man. For you, Lord, again, Yahweh, have done as you pleased.

Then they took Jonah, threw him overboard and the Raging Sea grew calm. Today, I want to talk to you about the impact of your decisions. The impact of your decisions. Let me pray one more time. Father God, we thank you for today.

I thank you personally right now, that that every single person here made the decision to show up today. I thank you specifically for the, the leadership team and the volunteers today who made the decision to view you in the midst of dire circumstances. I say dire. It's not dire, Lord. You know there's way worse stuff out there, but you know what I mean.

Lord, God, I thank you for people's decision today to put you first and I pray that they would continue to do so. I thank you for whatever brought these people here today. Even if it was a hard situation, I know that you were the God that's above all things, and so that they came here to hear you is an amazing thing today. I believe that decision will produce much fruit. God be with this room today and let us leave here impacted by your presence.

It's in Jesus's name that we pray amen. Anyone ever been in a situation where you have to make the decision to like own it, like own the whole scenario? Let me give you an example. I remember when I was, I was in college. I was a, a junior in college and full- grown adult.

You know, the problem with college is you go to college for 3 years and it's like it's just postponing your real adulthood. So I was an adult but I wasn't very responsible. I wasn't used to taking ownership of a lot of things. Anyways, a group of friends and I- we went camping. Anyone you been camping?

I just trying to get a glimpse into who the room is. So some people like to Camp. How many of you have really gone camping like not not glamping, not the RV, like in a tent? All right, now I just want to see who's hardcore in this place. How many of you have gone camp like real camping, like without a tent?

You went out there and you put two sticks together and you made yourself a anyone in here. All right, cool, we got the military guys right back here. Everybody, give up for our military. We're grateful for you, even though you just bragged on yourself, just kidding. So I go out, with this group of people and we're kind of roughing it, and we started the fire and we thought it would be fun to play hide-and seek- remember, not full- grown adults, college, right, I think.

The Strangers movie had just come out and we were like a this would be creepy. So we went and we played hide-and go seek. And then we all get back to the fire after playing hide-and go seek and we all looked at each other realizing we're wait, too old to do this kind of stuff. But we looked around and we recognized that we were missing somebody. They weren't there and it was the one person that you invite on the trip because you want to be nice, but you know they can't really hack camping.

You know I'm talking about. It's the person that's like, oh my gosh, it's a BG, we don't like this. Or you want me to sleep. That's the ground. Why?

Why would I sleep on like that person? And we realized in like one quick moment we really shouldn't have left them by themselves while we were doing hide and go see, and everyone around the fire, like they start flipping out, like oh my gosh, cuz we in the woods man like no GPS's back in my day- I'm not that old, but you know we barely had them- and we start, everybody starts looking, but they're freaking out. And I realized in that moment I can make a decision to freak out too, or I can try to keep my cool. Not, I'm not bragging on myself, I just realized that everybody else is freaking out. We're just going to do some dumb stuff, split up like they doing scary movies, and then someone's going to get killed by the end of the night, you know.

So I was like okay, so we got to keep our cool. And so they- they came up to me and they said: hey, do you think we can find her? And I'm in my mind, I'm like nope, but like I don't know what's going to happen. But I looked at them and I said yo, we got this, we're good, it's going to be okay. Like she's right around the that tree over there.

Probably let's go check. In fact, why don't you do this? W? You do this like I handled the situation right, and so, anyways, I, we looked around for about an hour, didn't find them, and then we sat down, we were pondering whether we should go to the cops and then, lo and behold, this person just strolls on up. It's like y'all didn't find me.

And I'm like no, we didn't, we did not find you, they were still hiding. I don't know if they were in bushes or up in a tree, but we, we found them and that's probably not the best illustration, but the reason I give you that is because we all find ourselves in places where, we're making a decision. It could be big like that- I mean, I don't think that was that big, showed up in an hour- but we're all in this place. You might need to make a decision to hire somebody. If you, if you lead a business, you might need to make a decision to cut back.

If you lead a business, you might need to make decisions in your family that are really hard, because maybe your kids want to do something, but you don't feel like the Lord wants you guys to go in that direction, so you pull back. You might need to help them make a decision on their own about which sports they should play, which sports they shouldn't play, which group of people to hang out with and which group of people not to hang out with. We are all faced every single day with a plethora of decisions to make, some small, some big. And I want you to know- and I, I, I- I don't think you came to church wanting me to say this, but it's the truth, your decisions have an impact. Some of you made a decision a long time ago to live life in a certain way, and you just became like: this is me.

You didn't say: this is, I'm just going to do this for a season. You eventually did it long enough to where you said: this is who I am and you become content with it. And that might be good in some way. It could also be detrimental, because the decisions we make to operate in certain ways have an impact not just on us. It impacts other people like.

A better and more relevant example is: I made a decision this week to say, hey, let's pay for some extra storage and put our big trailer underneath a covered thing- I don't know the cover, whatever they call that. Let's put it under covering because it's starting to get hot, amen somebody. And as it gets hotter and hotter, I don't want all of our equipment to one day not work, but that decision shifted it in the system to the point where something happened and we weren't able to open the gate, so that one little decision had an impact on all of you. Your decisions make an impact in both directions, positive and negative, and when I look at Jonah, I see a man who made a decision. It could have been for good reasons, but he wasn't thinking about the repercussions of his decisions.

Or, if he was, he wasn't thinking in the right direction. He made a decision. You know what I feel like? God's calling me to go to Nineveh, but I also feel like I don't like Nineveh. I also feel like I don't like that people group.

I feel like maybe they have wronged me in the past or done something to my family members, and I feel like I should go in the opposite direction. He might have even been so honest with himself as to say: Lord, I'm going in this direction because I don't like the direction you called me in and I feel like I'm probably not the right guy. He might have been like Moses. When God Called Moses to pull the Egyptian or pull the Israelites out of Egypt, he said: hey, Moses go, let my people go. And Moses is like.

I'm not really eloquent in speech. I don't know if I'm the right guy. Right. Whatever reason you have, you choose to go in the wrong direction or the opposite direction of the Lord. This is Jonah.

I don't want to just act like he's a terrible person. We find out later, he's a pretty bad guy. Like he's not a good dude. This is why this series is called not Jonah. You don't want to be like Jonah, but he made a decision and it could have come in some ways from good intentions.

But that decision he made not only has an impact on the ninevites that we're not thinking about right now. It appears it had an impact on the Phoenician Sailors that he hitched to ride with in the boat, and they're starting to have negative consequences because of the one decision that he made to disobey God. I don't know what decision it was for you a long time ago, it might have been recently, it might have been when you were younger, but you made decisions to take your life on a trajectory and that decision makes an impact. I'm talking to parents in this room. Your decisions with parenting make an impact.

You know this, right, parents in the room, you know this. Can I be honest with you for a second? I told my kid one thing like 3 weeks ago. I said: don't do that. That's weird.

That's all I said. Is that shake your head if that's kind of normal, or don't shake it if it isn't. Maybe I'm a terrible person and you should go to another church cu's a better, he's got a better dad on the front, . But I told I said, dude, don't do that, that's weird. I was like, hey, let's, let's knit this in the bud, let's stop this right now so that that dude can have social skills 3 weeks from now.

All I was saying, dude, that's weird, don't do that. And then someone was talking to him recently and he- he looked at them. He said: I'm weird because I do this. And I remember thinking, oh gosh, my nonchalant, basic decision to do something that seemed normal to me had an impact and I can bring it into your, your marriage, I could bring it into your workplace. Some of us, we have become content walking through life, not thinking about how our decisions impact other people.

You said: you know what? I don't, I don't think I should go to church. That decision makes an impact on more than just you. You might have said: hey, you know what? I'm going to work a little bit longer today cuz the kids are really, really stressful and so I'm going to come home a little bit late.

It's much easier- and I'm going to be honest with you, I've been there before- it's much easier to sit at the office and next hour than it is to come home and your wife, whether she works or not, looks at you and says: here's the baby. It's easier to sit back, but that decision to stay back makes an impact. Now I want you to hear me clearly. I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I am just trying to scientifically diagnose many, one of many of our problems here today, and it's that we don't think about the impact of our decisions on other people.

It could be a big decision or it can be some minute decision that you didn't even think about and I don't want to give you too many examples. But I remember I taught a kid the breaststroke wrong when I was teaching swim lessons and I just have the image in my mind. I taught him. I taught him to kick twice. Look at me, yall know not to kick twice during a breaststroke.

I'm going to teach all you people, right, right, I'm going to redeem this in the name of Jesus today. But I have an image in my mind that that kid's still kicking twice when he's breast stroking. I have an image in my mind that he tried out for the swim team in high school and he kicked twice and his coach is like what are you doing? Like I have an image in my mind that I ruined that his life cuz I taught him the breast stroke wrong. I probably didn't.

Who knows, maybe his mom just said: no, we're not going to go back to that guy, but our decisions. Look at your neighbor, says your decisions make an impact. That was about, three people on the left side. We're going to try that again. Look at your neighbor says: your decisions make an impact.

Your, they do. It is your decisions. They reverberate into the fabric of his history and you have zero understanding of the full impact of that decision. Now, I'm not trying to stress you out, I'm trying to make you aware, cuz Jonah wasn't aware, and if there's one thing I've learned in life is that many people aren't aware of how their decisions to live their life in a particular way have an impact on other people. And- and Jonah like, I'll take you to verse four for a second.

Jonah says this and I get, I wish I could put it on the screen for you, but then the light would have to go off and then no one after the church would be able to watch it on YouTube. So I want to say, sorry. Verse five says this: all the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own God and they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. Now, these guys probably not innocent. They're Phoenician Sailors.

You can go do some history on what they would do now. They weren't crazy like the ninevites, but they did not know Yahweh. They did not know the one true God. And these guys start freaking out, as do many, when life gets chaotic again. I was doing that a little bit this morning, but thank the Lord I got Jesus in my life and he calms me down once in a while.

You know, it is hard to live through life and there are people out there just like these Phoenician sailors. They don't have a relationship with God. They don't have any Pathway to enter peace. They don't know how to get rid of anxiety in their life other than by taking meds. But we know a God who can redeem us from the inside out.

We have a relationship with a God. We know this God and we know that he is not just winding a clock and forgetting it. We know that he cares about each one of us, us, and Jonah knows who Yahweh is and when these people are freaking out, anyone remember what Jonah's doing and it's funny. I need you to know that. That Jonah, I believe, is historical, but I also believe that it was intended, to be satirical, and if you don't know what satirical means, what that means is it uses a lot of hyperbolic language.

It's it's using intense language, and what it says about Jonah here is it says he fell into what kind of sleep? A deep sleep. It's trying to tell us that Jonah- and I want to give you my point here- he's made his bed with his decision, and my question for you is: have you made your bed? Have you made your bed? Because I one of my pet peeves and I'm going to tell you here, cuz someone last week said: hey, when you get intense and real, I like it.

I'm like, okay, I hope you like it, cuz I'm going do it right now, real quick. One of my pet peeves is when someone says I'm just this way, or this is who I am in relation to something that is not really who they are. It's something that they did, and they did it long enough that someone said, hey, you're a liar, or hey, you're a cheater, or hey, you're not good at this, or hey, you have no capacity, potential or Worth. Right like I, I'm not worth anything, Moses, I'm inadequate. Jonah, I'm not the guy die right.

And we've said that long enough. And we have gotten to the place where we have are so content with our decision to not follow God or so content with our-, self-identity that we've made our bad and we have started to fall deeply into that situation or the consequences of that decision. Some people in here, someone, told you when you were younger you weren't capable of accomplishing something in life- life. And now you're 20, 30, 40, 60. I've met all different groups.

You're like, well, all I'm worth is this kind of job or all I'm worth is this type of people. And you have made your bed with the decision to surround yourself with people that aren't healthy for you. You have made your bed and decided to settle for a life that is mediocre or even miserable, because you don't believe that you deserve the miraculous. You have made your bed in a life that is not. We say this here at Orbit Church.

We say we imagine more because we believe that he'll do immeasurably more than we can ask, think or imagine. Paul says this in Ephesians. And since we believe so much about our God, we believe so much about what God is capable of doing through this church, and I believe what God is capable of doing in each one of you, even when someone lied to you and told you weren't good enough. That's what we believe at the church. But you've made your bed with that and your decision to make your bed fall into a deep struggle, fall into to a deep depression, fall into a deep lifestyle.

Whatever it is, it has an impact on others. I talk about this sometimes from stage. You' fallen into a deep sleep and you become content with your decision, but that doesn't mean your spouse is content with your decision. That doesn't mean the people around you that look up to you are content with your decision. Your kids don't even know what that decision was.

They just know what they see. And I can tell you this: if they knew better, then they wouldn't be content with your decision to settle. But because we've made our bed, we live our life. We think about people a particular way, we think about ourselves a particular way and we limit ourselves because of the fact that we've made our bed. We've done what Jonah did.

Jonah could have imagined more for his life. Jonah could have said: you know what? I don't understand what you want to do, Lord, but because you called me to do it, I'm going to do it. I don't think I'm capable and I also don't think I can change my opinion about these Assyrian people who literally skinn the lies some of my people, like I. I don't know if I can change my opinion, Lord, I don't know if I can change my ways, but since I know you and I can imagine more in my life with you, I'm going to walk in that direction.

But Jonah did the opposite, made his bed, and the fact that he's sleeping in the midst of the- it says the hle is the way you would translate it- he's sleeping in the hole, literally where the baggage was, and probably when they're throwing away baggage, they see this guy, Jonah, hanging out in the hole in a deep sleep and like bro, wake up call on your own God. Don't you realize? We're perishing out here? We've thrown everything else out, we're getting ready to throw somebody out, so won't you wake up call on your God? Even the people outside of who he is, even the people who don't know anything about him, they don't know where he's from.

They don't know the language that he speaks. They don't know the God he serves. They're like bro, you got to do something. And if I can say this to you as boldly-, it's a bold thing for me to say, if I can say this to you today: I don't know you. I don't know where you came from.

I don't know your struggles. I don't know what you came in here arguing about with your spouse. I don't know the difficulty with your kids. I don't know how frustrated you are in your current occupation. I really don't know much about you at all, but I do know Yahweh.

And since I know Yahweh, I know what he can do in your life. So might I say, just like The Phoenician Sailors who have no clue who Yahweh is, can I look at you and say: get out of it, don't stay stuck, don't be in this deep Funk that you're in. You don't have to, because God loves you and I'm going to get there in a second. But just cuz you made your bed, don't mean you can't get up, am you? It's time to wait.

Look at your neighbor say: get up. Get up, man, get up out of your stuff, man. I have to tell myself that every single day. And I know Jesus. I know that I can go to Philippians and say: think on the things that are true, right, honorable, pure, lovely and of good repute.

I know that I have a God that loves me so much that he sent his son to die on the cross for me. I know who Yahweh is. I know he created me from my mother's womb. I know that he has an end in mind and he's going to send his son, Jesus, back on a white horse and he's going to redeem us from all the stuff that we hate in this life. I know my God, but I still wake up in the morning sometimes and then the trailer Gates locked and I look at it and I get into a deep Funk and I'm like, well, I guess I'll just have to deal with it.

But no, I'm going to say you know what? Let's figure this stuff out. Let's figure out how we can make a mountain out of this mole hill. Let's figure out how God can do more with what we have than what we've currently been imagining. So we started asking, and then I look around and I'm like, CZ, you got a full band going.

What, oh, I got to play guitar. Okay, I'll do that. We can figure that one out. What we've still got space, what we can. We got bleachers.

We can flip them up and put them on the side and they can still see through it. But you know, it's good enough, it's better a little bit. Oh, we found this pip and drap out of the middle of nowhere. We can figure life out because we've got a God who not only gives us salvation, but he gives us creativity. He gives us Ingenuity.

He loves us so much that he will help get us out of our pit. He did it with Jonah, or he's going to do it with Jonah. He did it with Joseph, he's done it with Moses, he did it in the New Testament and he'll do it with you. So if you've made your bed, you don't have to stay in it. You can get out of it and start moving forward.

But it says Jonah had gone below deck and the sailors look at him. In verse 6 says: get up and call on your God. Maybe we will. They will. He will take notice of us so that we will not perish.

Then the sailors said to each other: come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for This calamity. They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they asked him, tell us who was responsible. And he jumps in. Here's what he says in verse 9.

He says: I'm a Hebrew, I worship Yahweh, the God of Heaven, who made the sea in the dry land, and it the response there is: this terrified them. And these guys are really, really nice. They try to. They try to row back to land like this is the nicest group of Phoenician s. This is a group of pirates.

This is a group of Phoenician Sailors here. I guess we're in Phoenix and you call each other pH phenicians once in a while. I guess there's a connection that we can make, that you should be nice to people. But this group of people, they try to roll back in. But Jonah is like he doesn't even care.

He fell into the deep sleep. He wakes up and he's like: why'd y'all wake me up, bro? Like I- yeah, I'm a Hebrew, I serve The God Who made the Sea and the land. They got to be looking at him like he made the Sea and the land. Well, guess what, we're in the sea.

It's not a good experience- and we're trying to get to the land, and that's not a good experience. How about you calling your God and figure something out? We know God, but because we haven't thought about the impact of our decisions, we're just like Jonah with these Phoenician Sailors. Someone comes up to you and say, hey, shouldn't you know better? You're like, yeah.

But they walk up to you and you're like, hey, aren't you a Christian? Why are you acting like that? And you're like, ah, I've heard this, I've heard this. God forgave me a long time ago. Man, shouldn't you be acting different this week?

Shouldn't you be operating differently? But because we're so content in our, we're like Jonah: ah, leave me alone, do not judge. L you be judged. Be honest with me. How many of you said that to somebody?

None of y'all. We're the only jerks in this room, like you know all right. So in the Bible it says: Jesus actually says this in The Sermon on the Mount. He sayso not judge, lest you be judged. And then he goes further and tells them what judgment looks like.

And do not judge has been like the number one thing people say when someone goes up to them they believe in God. They're not living in the way that God called them to live. They might be like Jonah in the exact opposite direction. People around them are perishing, they're struggling, but you're just content in the lifestyle that you chose to live. Someone comes up to you and says, why are you doing it that way?

And you're like: don't judge. And I want, I want you to know this. God cares so much about you that he will often send people to you to help you become aware of and see the logic of the lifestyle that you're living, that you've made your bed, started sleeping in and you become- so- I don't know if it's disillusioned by your faith or so disconnected from God that you're just fine, no matter how many people are telling you. We got to work on this if our marriage is going to work. We got to.

We got to get better at the way that we're parenting these kids. We've got to shift the way that we think about people, otherwise we're never going to have friends. When people come to you, they talk to you about relational, job oriented or future oriented things, could even be finances. We've got to put God at the center and you're just like: ah, why would I do that? Leave me alone, stop judging me.

That's not going to work. This is The Phoenician Sailors and they're. They're pretty nice about it and Jonah is unresponsive. And so my second point is: have you taken ownership? Have you taken ownership?

It says who's responsible? Who's responsible? Who's responsible? I don't know who- who messed you over when you were younger- I know it's not all your fault, I don't know who said what they said. I don't know the construct or environment that you grew up in that caused you to live life in a particular way.

I always say this: it's not your fault in every, but, partnering with God, it is your responsibility to start taking steps and starting to make new decisions, to get yourself out of whatever you're in or into what you've been saying you want to step into. You've got to start making the. Have you taken ownership? We live in a culture of people who want to blame everybody else for the thing that they're stuck in. I could do it.

Is my mom in here? Yeah, okay, she got to be careful, mom. I can blame you for all the stuff that's wrong with me. I could say genetics, or, or. One time she did that one thing and, now, look at me, her fault, but I don't anymore.

When I was younger, I was a liberal college kid. You know like I was anyways- I digress and you, you can do this the same thing too. You could blame just about anything for where you find yourself, but until you take ownership- Jonah hadn't taken ownership yet. Jonah, sitting here like I guess you, gu got to throw me out the boat. I guess I shouldn't go to church anymore.

I guess I should tell my kids that you know what. I'm not going to force you, because my parents forc me and it's their fault that I'm not in church anymore. So I'm not going to lead you into a place where you know Jesus well. We're just going to make our bed, live in it and be content. And I'm not saying to force your kids, I am saying to lead your kids.

It's just an example of what we find ourselves stuck in. Have you taken ownership of your ability to do what Paul says, to press upward toward the calling of God in Christ Jesus? Have you taken ownership of the things that are dysfunctional in your life? Because once you take ownership and recognize the sin that you're stuck in, recognize the issues that you're stuck in, then you can look at them and say: can I fix them? And I need you to know there are some things that you can adjust and fix, but there are some things only God can fix and it requires you to make a decision.

But it, but it. It takes ownership. Look at your neighbor. Be very nice with this, just like a Phoenician sailor, right, not Jonah. Look at your NE.

You stare him in the eyeball for a second because you're going to say something really important to them. Say, say, take ownership. Y'all were scared to say that is it because I did it so loud: take ownership, man. If you don't, if you don't take ownership, you're going to keep blaming everybody. And I get it.

It's okay to recognize where a problem came from, but the reality is it's in you now. And if you don't want it to be generational curse after generational curse, if you don't want it to pass to your family, to the people around you, to your kids, if you don't want it to continue through your entire life, you have to say you know what. It wasn't my fault, but I'm going to stop it here. It's time to move forward, press onward, to press upward and to make a decision to follow Jesus and wrap every, everything around him. John is not there yet, but you can be.

You can make that decision today to take ownership. I don't think I'm communicating this as well as I could. I want to go a little bit more surgical, if I can. Some of you are in a marriage that you're frustrated in right now, and maybe you're fine, but it needs to be better. There are things that you are doing that are causing- it might be a harsh word- that causes defensiveness from your spouse and they might say something and, because of the insecurities you presently have, you think they're saying something.

They're really not. Regardless. Guess where you end up? It's in a fight, and many people don't just stop at the fight. Then they move to separation, then they move to divorce, and I guess I want to tell you this: that decision makes an impact.

You' got to take ownership. You can't take ownership for what somebody else did. You can take own ownership for what you've done, how you think and how you're going to move forward. You might think: why is he harping so much on that? I got it the first time when he said: take ownership, recognize my responsibility.

Jonah is not doing it, our culture doesn't do it, and so I feel the need to communicate the importance of taking ownership. I'm not saying you got to save yourself. God has provided the pathway for that. I'm saying you have to be aware, take ownership, recognize I can fix this, but I need God. I need him to come into my life and fix this.

And so, after he answers it, what we find is verse 10 says this terrified them because he knew the God of the land and the Sea. And they asked: what have you done? They knew he was running away from the Lord because he had already told him. So the sea was getting rougher and rougher, so they asked him and eventually they throw him out of the boat. And the funny thing about this passage is Jonah is still running away from the Lord, so much so that he's right, willing to get his life taken.

But the Phoenician Sailors, when they toss him out the boat, what are they doing? They're praying. It's funny how even God takes bad decisions, turns them around, amen, somebody. They're praying. What Jonah meant for?

Evil or negative or just insecurity? God meant for good, CU. These phenician Sailors know who Yahweh is now and they're praying to him. They say, Lord, we're throwing them out, but we're clinging to you. That's a really cool moment in the story because while our decisions, our bad decisions or our suspect decisions or our nonchalant decisions can have a negative impact.

One decision can have an impact in the opposite direction as well, and I don't want you to leave here feeling bad. Oh my gosh, I taught a kid to swim wrong one day and now I'm thinking about it cuz the pastor talked about I want you leave and thinking about how you taught someone to swim wrong or your kids can't swim yet mine can't either. I need to work on that one. I want you to leave here thinking about how your decisions can make a positive impact. You can make a decision as you walk out of here and it might diminish the like import of it right now, because I'm telling you could do it, but still it a't going to change it.

You know you can still do it. You can walk out of here with a smile on your face, look at someone you don't know and say, hey, how are you doing today? My name is such and such. What's your name? Let's chat.

You want to go grab lunch? You ain't realize the impact of a decision like that. I forget. One person made a decision one day to step into Ministry. Then they made another decision to go to a specific church and then they made a decision, to go lead at that specific Camp.

Then they made a decision to allow me to go on that specific camp and then I showed up and then someone I've told some of y'all this, someone named Melissa, went and told this person who joined Ministry, went on that camp that I'm going to hell. And I looked at her. I was kind of frustrated cuz she said that. I said: who are you to judge? And then he looked at me and he realized that what she said was true and he made the decision in that moment to take me under his wing and spend some time with me and while I started as a chicken with my head cut off, he helped me get to the place where, eventually, I would surrender to the calling of ministry.

Just just a couple small decisions. You might make a decision to say something nice to your kid today. You might make a decision to come home on time as opposed to a little bit late. You might say: you know what? I haven't said anything nice to my wife this week.

We've been arguing a little bit. I- maybe your husband too, you know he- walk up to him and say: Hey, you look good that shirt- you might walk up to him and you say, hey, you know what? I am grateful that you do that. These are super small decisions, but your decisions make an impact and you can make a decision right now that will have a world of impact on your life. It's a small decision, seems like a small decision.

It's simple. It's one of the most basic things you can do is pray, a prayer of aligning your thoughts to God's thoughts, and that's simple. Decision changed everything for me. And if that was you, that simple decision changed everything for you. Why don't you to say Amen, real quick.

Just a couple- I'm just kidding, it's several of you, you're just quiet- a bunch of deacons in this place. No, you trusted in Jesus and that decision made an impact. Amen, somebody. It changed everything about you. You're showing up at 5:00 in the morning and you're stomaching it when the trailer gate doesn't open.

You're coming up to me and you're making a difference because of that decision long ago to say: you know what? I'm going to put Jesus at the center of my life. You make an impact when you make that decision. You make an impact when you make the decision to serve. If you come up to next steps.

Today. I'm not just trying to sell it. I'm telling you the truth. We're talking about self-discovery. There's a little personality and spiritual gifts test.

That little decision could change the way that you see your future. It's little and I'm not saying I'm going to do it. I'm saying I know what a small decision can impact in your life. 5 years from now, you could look different. And it all starts with the decision to do not what Jonah did, but what so many others have done, and confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead.

That's the prescription for salvation. It says you will be saved when you do that, and so I'm believing that there's somebody in this room- maybe many in this room- who are ready to make that decision and they don't know for sure what's going on, but I want to promise you it'll make an impact. So if everybody would bow their heads and close their eyes, we're going to pray this prayer and, I want to invite everyone to make the decision to repeat after me as I go through this prayer, not because you necessarily need it, but for the benefit- right, because our decisions make an impact- of those who are sitting around us. So if you would pray this prayer out loud for the benefit of others around us, you might repeat after me: God, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, I believe he died on the cross and Rose from the grave. Forgive me of my sin, Wash Me, cleanse me, change me.

Change and I commit right now to follow you for the rest of my life. Amen. Now, if that was you and you prayed that prayer for the first time, there's not a connection card for you to check today, but if you would go to our website, orbit churchorg, and click I'm new, it'll take you to a connection card and what you'll be able to do is you'll check. I have decided to follow Jesus. That not only lets us know that you trusted in Jesus, but is a trigger for us to help you take your next step and for the rest of you today connected at some level to this church.

You see what it looks like when people show up this. I mean like this is it? This is what I mean, minus this stuff. This is what it looks like, and God doesn't need any of this stuff to build a church, but God decided to use each of you to build this church, and so what does it look like for you to take your next step toward serving, if you've already trusted in Jesus and you're ready to commit at a deeper level? If that's you, when we're done here, hang out, chat for a second.

We're going to go right up the stairs and we're going to have our next steps class talking about self-discovery. It will be fun and I think there's Pizza, unless that was behind the trailer gate. You know what I'm saying. I don't think it was old Pizza. Anyways, if you guys would stand with me, I'm going to close us with one more prayer.

God, we thank you for the good times and the bad times, and we thank you for this simple reality that, regardless of our external, we can de side right now to serve you, to follow you and God, we thank you for your son, Jesus, and the Salvation that he brings. It is in Jesus's name that we pray and all God's people said amen. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next week. Lights and all.