What Matters Most | Jonah: God's Mercy In My Mess (Part Six)

Thank you for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.

To find out more about this message or Riverbend Church,

connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.

This week we're going to continue on.

We're actually closing out our series through the book of

Jonah. It's a book of four chapters,

but we've been walking through this is the 6th week of the book

of Jonah. And one of the things that we

have seen throughout this throughout this entire series,

we have learned truths. God is tall as truth, pointed us

to the truth in his word that the different opportunities that

that that may arise in our lives for us to be disobedient to God,

that they're they're not accidental and they're not

coincidental. They're very strategic.

In other words, God has a plan for for you and I God has a plan

for every single one of our lives and every single one of

us. We're tempted to turn away from

that plan. Those temptations, they're not

accidental, they're not coincidental, they're very

intentional and they're very strategic because we have a very

real enemy that does not want us to live in alignment with the

heart of God. We've also talked about we've

also looked at how through the life of Jonah that so many of

us, I think every single one of us at one time or another, we

ran from the plans that God had for for us and, and we we walked

in disobedience to God. And but God loves us so much

that he will go to great lengths to get our attention to draw us

back to his heart. And then we looked at one Jonah

was in the belly of that fish for three days and three nights.

We've looked at how grace or we can find grace at rock bottom.

If we look at our rock bottom through the lens of I can be

frustrated, all the things that I can't control, but I can also

look at all the things that I can't control and realize that

God never lost control of those things.

That's when panic turns to prayer and that's when I can

find actually God's grace right there at rock bottom.

We talked about how God is a God of, of second chances.

If you were here with us last week, we took a look, an in

depth look at how there's a distinctive difference between

remorse and repentance. And, and, and Jesus calls us to

repentance, not just remorse. And there's a huge difference

between the two. But this morning we're going to

be taking a look at Jonah chapter 4.

Jonah 4 · chapter mention

This chapter is what author and pastor Tim Keller refers to as

the most forgotten and the most unexpected chapter of the entire

Bible. And this is what he means.

I I agree with him, but this is what this is what is meant by

that is most everybody has heard of Jonah and being swallowed by

a fish. Most people, they, they, they

know that Jonah was swallowed by a fish.

They've heard the storage on a swallowed by a fish that he

repented and then he was released from the fish.

Most people think that that's where Jonah's story ends.

Some, however, they know where we spent the last two weeks.

They know that after being released from the fish that that

Jonah goes into Nineveh and and tells the people of Nineveh the

message that God gave him. And the revival fell that day on

the capital city of the Assyrian Empire on the people of Nineveh.

Very, very few people know how the rest of Jonah chapter 4

Jonah 4 · chapter mention

ends. Most people just assume that

revival fell on Nineveh. Jonas celebrated revival,

celebrated this great movement of God with the people of

Nineveh. He probably went to a potluck

dinner, probably brought a casserole.

And then he went skipping out of the city limits all the way back

to his hometown, telling everybody about this great

movement of God that he was able to be a part of and what he was

able to see and, and just excitement everywhere.

And then he got back to his hometown and he he, he stood up

in church and he gave the report and he ended up writing a book

and going on a conference, sticking to her and probably

even started a podcast. That's what most people assume.

That's not what happened. That's not at all what happened.

To give us a little bit of context of what happened at the

book of at the end of the book of Jonah, I want to ask that

you've joined me in Jonah chapter 3, verse 10.

Jonah 3:10

There's going to be a little bit of an overlap to give us a

fuller view of the context. But Jonah 310 says when God saw

what they did, the people of Nineveh, how they turned from

their evil way, God relented of the disaster that He had said

that He would do to them, and He did not do it.

Jonah 414 verse one. But it displeased Jonah

exceedingly. And he was angry, that phrase,

and he was angry. We're going to come back to that

in just a second. And he prayed to the Lord and

said, O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my

country? That is why I made haste to flee

to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and relenting

from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please

take my life from me, for it's better for me to die than to

live. And the Lord said, Jonah, do you

do well to be angry? Jonah went out of the city and

sat at the east of the city and made a booth there for himself

and he sat under it in the shade till he should see what would

become of the city. Now in case you missed anything,

let's kind of review and unpack what just happened.

God sent his chosen prophet and preacher Jonah to preach the

message. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be

overthrown to the people of Nineveh.

Jonah goes 1/3 of the way into the city, gives that message.

Revival falls on to the city. Jonah, this prophet of God, this

chosen preacher of God, he gets ticked, he's furious, he's

angry. We know that the Old Testament

is written in the Hebrew language.

Remember that phrase that I told you come back to and he became

angry. Jonah chapter 4 verse one.

Jonah 4 · chapter mention

The Hebrew for that is by you Char value char, emphasis on the

char there because it literally means to be burned up, to be

kindled with anger. He was ticked.

He was ticked that God did not destroy the people of Nineveh.

And not only was he ticked, he told God all about it, right?

He told God all about it. And he even goes to the links of

saying, hey, God, I would rather die than live in a world to

where you show grace and mercy to the people of Nineveh.

And then we read about how Jonah storms out of the city, climbs a

hill, the tallest hill overlooking the city, basically

lays out a blanket, sets up a picnic for himself so he has the

best seat in the house. Hoping that God would finally

come to his senses and start raining fire down from heaven

and destroy the city, Jonah got a bird's eye view of the

impending destruction that he was hoping would come.

Now a lot of us are sitting here thinking, wow, I had no idea.

That's how the book of Jonah ended.

And then we were left with two questions.

Then was Jonah really that big of a jerk?

And the answer to that question is yes, Yes, he was.

But then the the most overarching question is how

could a prophet and a preacher of God prophet and a preacher of

God, How could he ever become so hard and calloused towards

people? How in the world could Jonah

ever become so hard and calloused to where he was so mad

that God didn't destroy every man, every woman and every child

in the city of Nineveh? And then goes and sets up

basically a picnic for himself, hoping to get like the best seat

in the house to watch the destruction happen, to watch

Nineveh burn and all the people be incinerated and die.

How in the world could a prophet and a preacher of God become so

hard and callous towards people? I believe that Jonah believed a

lie. That's so easy for us to fall

for. Here's the lie if you're taking

notes with us. Whatever matters most to me must

matter most to God. Whatever matters most to me,

man, that most that that must matter most to God.

What mattered most to Jonah? People of Nineveh, they get

what's coming to them. So that must matter most to God.

So when God didn't do what Jonah thought that God should do,

guess what? Jonah gets ticked off with God

never taking a heart check, never taking a heart check.

And this is where you and I, this is where we're going to be

wrapping up this series this morning.

It is really asking God to do a heart check, to do a heart check

to where we do not fall for the law.

Hey, whatever matters most to me, it must matter most to God.

I believe that there are three different categories, 3

different areas that matter most to most people.

If you take a notes with us, here's the first one.

It's our passions. It's our passions.

What I'm most passionate about, that must be what God's most

passionate about. But I think Jonah goes a step

further. You see Jonah's passion or his

calling was to be a prophet of God.

He was, he was hand selected by God.

He was God's chosen mouthpiece as a prophet.

Now in the Old Testament. Now now like pass a New

Testament, we don't have prophets with capital P anymore

because we have like the full word of God.

We have all 66 books of the Bible.

We don't need prophets with a capital P.

But way back in the day, Old Testament, you would have these

prophets, capital P prophets, that their job was to hear

directly from God and then to say that message from God to the

people of God. So a prophet, Jonah was directly

responsible for pronouncing blessings on the people of God

and rebukes on the people of God.

That meant that Jonah wasn't the most popular guy in his

neighborhood, right? But here's where I think that

Jonah started to go sideways. Jonah started to believe.

I believe Jonah started to believe that God needed him,

that God needed his input. God needed his take.

God needed his advice on what God should do.

Hey, God, I feel like we've been in this relationship long enough

to where I can predict what you're going to say.

And here's some advice. You didn't ask for it, but I

think this would be a good idea. It's that's not how it it's not

how it works. And I don't know about you, but

it's really easy. It's really easy.

The the longer you've walked with God, the longer you've been

in a relationship with God, the easier it is to exchange Jesus's

call to ask, seek and to knock. We replace the ask seek knock

with tail point and walk away in in other words, I think a lot of

us we we're so guilty. I know that many times I am

we're so guilty of saying, hey God, this is what I'm going to

do today. This is what is is involved in

my day. I just need you to bless it all

along the way instead of hey God, how can I bring glory to

you today starting my day off with God, today is the day that

you have given me. How can I bring the most glory

to you? Most of the time, if we even

think about spending time with God in prayer at the beginning

of the day, it's kind of like, hey God, I'm looking at my

calendar. This is what I know that I have

coming up. I just need you to bless it.

And that's where we start to go a little bit sideways.

And when we start to live that way for a stretch of time,

here's what happens is the inevitable hard times will hit.

Things won't go our way and predictably, we will start to

get really mad, furious, angry, and ticked off at God for not

coming through on something that he never promised to do to begin

with. And we could have avoided the

whole thing because we fell for a lie that, hey, what matters

most to me must matter most to God.

It's our passions. I think second, the second thing

that matters most to most is people is people.

Let's go back for a moment. Little 8th century BC

geopolitics there. Sounds like a double jeopardy

category, doesn't it? If you go back to the very

beginning book of Genesis, you got this guy by the name of

Abraham. Abraham and Sarah, they're

elderly and they have no kids. And yet God tells Abraham, hey,

through you, I'm going to create a, a, a nation that will be my

own and it'll outnumber the stars in the sky.

And Abraham and Sarah, both around their 70s, are sitting

there going, OK, God, cool. Can we just start with one?

And if you, if you know the story about Abraham and Sarah,

you know that Sarah miraculously gets pregnant in her old age

with Isaac. Isaac is born and then he gives

birth to, he has some kids. Two of those kids are Jacob and

Esau. God changes Jacob's name to

Israel, and then Israel's going to have a handful of kids, two

handfuls of kids. They're going to go on to become

the 12 tribes of Israel. So from the very beginning, you

have the Israelites or the Jewish people.

Those are God's chosen people. Those are God's chosen people.

So God, throughout the history of Israel and the Jewish people,

God will select a prophet from the Jewish people to the Jewish

people. It was very Jewish centric, if

you will. That was for Jonah, the Jews,

those were his people. It was the Jews.

And then it was all outsiders. It was US versus them.

And then to make matters worse, the Assyrian Empire, they pose a

great economic threat to Israel, to the people of God.

And they, they, they, they, they pose a great military threat to

Israel, to the people of God. As a matter of fact, we know

historically, 50 years after the book of Jonah under the, the,

the King's command, a God by the name of Shalom answer the fifth,

he sends one of his most prominent generals, a God by the

name of Sennacherib. He goes to the northern capital

city of Israel, Samaria, and completely ransacks it and then

brings all the people. If they don't, he brings them

all back to Assyria, back typically to Nineveh as slaves.

So this people, the Ninevites, the Assyrians, they're a nasty

group that pose a great, great threat to the people of Israel.

And here's the thing that we see happening here through the life

of Jonah. Jonah allowed his patriotism to

usurp his prophetic call. He allowed his patriotism to

usurp his prophetic call. Now if you know anything about

sociology, sociology is basically the study of people

and how people interact with other people.

And a main branch of sociology has to do with how groups

interact with different groups. And basically, to summarize it,

I had to make sense because I graduated from Dacula High

school, class of 97 go Falcons. So I had to like read like the

dumbed down version of it. But this is what I understand

that every single one of us, that we are prone to be drawn to

people who like us and who are like us.

And we kind of call sociologists, call those groups

of people our tribe, if you will.

And there's nothing wrong with our tribes, but our tribes will

inevitably and inherently tint the lenses through which we see

other people who are not like us.

Let me give you some examples. Generational lines.

If you're young, if you're of a younger generation, it became

very vogue to, you know, if somebody that was older than you

said or did something that you didn't like, you is go, OK,

boomer categorizing the boomer generation.

If you're older and you're looking down on a younger

generation, you just shake your head and you go, ma'am,

millennials, what's up with millennials?

Generational lines? They, they, they, they color our

perspective, our tribe, our personal tribe colors and tents,

the lens through which we see groups that aren't like U.S.

team affiliations. So if you are of the Tribe of

Georgia Bulldogs fans, you know that if you're a Georgia Tech

fan, that you've given up on football.

If you are of the Georgia Tech tribe, you know that Georgia

fans, the Georgia Tribe, they've given up on speed limits.

But we also have these other lines like play place of origin,

NS with American, international, European.

We place of origin, language, culture, religious background.

We have all different groupings of people.

And here's what I would tell you.

Even though our gravitating to our tribe is not inherently

wrong, we have to be very, very careful that two things don't

take place #1 that we don't start mistakenly assuming that

some people actually deserve God's grace more than others.

And #2 we've got to become very, very careful not to step over

into just outright racism. So when we look at the things

that matter most to most people, we can see like how our personal

passions or how our people, our tribes impact or matter most to

most people. But then there's a third

category, and that's our preferences.

That's our preferences. All right.

So going back life of Jonah, prophet of God, Jonah had been

had been journeying with God for years before the book of Jonah

has ever written. So he kind of has a template for

how God worked in the past. And typically the template that

Jonah had seen was chosen people of God, Israel, other people

groups or nations don't like Israel.

So God pronounces judgement on the other people and he

basically rains down fire and destroys those other people.

So Jonah is called to the capital city of the Assyrian

Empire. Nineveh said 40 days, yet 40

days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

And Jonah's probably setting his clock going 39 days, 38.

And the closer it's ticking down, the bigger his smile gets.

And as a matter of fact, Jonah goes to the outskirts of the

city like we just talked about. Gets a bird's eye view best seen

in the house to watch the destruction the the the hopeful

and pending destruction. Almost with this thought, Hey

God, let's get this smiting thing over with man, y'all about

to get all lit up y'all, Y'all think y'all seen fireworks?

Y'all ain't seen nothing yet. God is about to rain down fire

on y'all. Why?

Why did Jonah take that attitude?

Because I think that he had seen it before.

Jonah didn't have a category for, hey, what happens if the

people repent? What happens if the people

repent? You see, his preference was

based on what he had always seen.

I think that his preference was based on like maybe even

something that he experienced at a very formative time in his in

in his spiritual relationship. I think that's how all of our

preferences start. By the way, there's nothing

wrong with personal preferences. I think that all of our personal

preferences start by going back to a point in time to where God

had the biggest impact and moved the most powerfully in our

lives. So let me give you an example.

For me, you'll know the song Shout to the Lord.

Shout to the Lord might as well have been the soundtrack to

several mighty moments of God moving in my life and working in

my life in my high school years. As a matter of fact, if it were

up to me, I'd have the lyrics of Shout to the Lord printed in the

back of every Bible. I think that it's almost

inspired by God. I will tell you just how foolish

we were. The guy that would always lead

shout to the Lord for our retreats.

We were convinced that he was the one that wrote it.

So imagine like my shock, I was like, who's Darlene Scheck?

Like they're writing worship songs from Australia, Huh?

Who knew? But that's my that's my

preference. A lot of times our preferences,

especially when it comes to music, if you think about it,

the songs that we gravitate towards the most are the songs

that were almost like the background soundtrack four times

that we experienced the movement of God the most in our lives,

right? And there's this assumption

again, there's nothing wrong with that, but there's this

assumption there that if we just go back and do now what we did

then, then God will move now just like he did then.

And there's 2 problems with that.

Number one, who gets to determine when the when is and

then #2 is. It makes God very formulaic.

It, it, it, it is almost our attempt to like harness the

power of the Holy Spirit. It makes God, tries to make the

Holy Spirit of God predictable and tameable, to which he's not.

I believe that one of the reasons that that Jonah raged

against God is because Jonah accepted this law that what

mattered most to him must matter most to God.

And when Jonah's, when his personal passions and his own

people, the view of his own people and as it conflicted with

God's view of people and his own preferences, when that clashed

with God, that's when Jonah raged.

So here's my question to you. What's our recourse?

What's our recourse to keep that from happening to us?

What is our recourse to keeping our hearts so that God can keep

our hearts tender and soft towards other people that aren't

like us? I want to show you where we left

off in the book of Jonah. That's not how the book of Jonah

ends. I want to show you let's go back

to Jonah, Jonah chapter 4 and let's go back and let's read

Jonah 4 · chapter mention

through how the how the back half of Jonah 4 ends.

It says Jonah went out of the city and sat down to the east of

the city and made a booth for himself there.

He sat under it in the shade till he should see what would

become of the city. Now the Lord appointed a plant,

and made it come up over Jonah, that he might be, that it might

be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort.

So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.

But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that

attached the plant, so that it withered when the sun rose.

Got appointed A scorching E wind and the sun beat down on the

head of Jonah, so that he was faint.

And he asked that he might die. And said, God, it is better for

me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, do you do

well to be angry for the plant? And Jonah said, yes, I do well

to be angry, angry enough to die.

And the Lord said, you pity the plant for which you did not

labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night

and perished in a night. And should I not, should not I

pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than

120,000 persons who do not know the right hand from their left,

and also much cattle? And that's how the book of Jonah

ends. That's how the book of Jonah

ends. He may say, OK Ben, So if what

matters most to me must matter most to God, if that's the lie,

what's the truth that God was pointing Jonah towards?

If you go throughout the entire book of Jonah, you'll see

several, you'll see a pattern. There's 4 chapters in the book

of Jonah. And in those four chapters we

see where God appointed says that he, he appointed a great

fish, He appointed a plant, He appointed a worm, He appointed A

scorching E wind. What was the point of God

appointing those things to get Jonah's attention?

And I think that the what God was trying to get Jonah's

attention for and pointing him to was a truth that he wants us

to know this morning. Here it is if you're taking

notes with us. God's calling me to step out of

my box and into His global mission.

God is calling me to step out of my box and into His global

mission. Let me get you to do me a favor.

Think back when you were a kid and you'll go into your living

room and and you would make you make a pillow for it.

Good days, right? You would take all the cushions

off the couch and out of the chair, and your parents would

find loose change. But you you take those cushions

out and you would arrange them. You'd set them up on their side

to where they would form the walls of your Fort.

And then once you got the walls set, then you would go gather up

like the blankets or the sheets. And then you would drape those

blankets and sheets over your Fort.

And, and before you went into your architectural masterpiece,

you would go into your room and you'd get your favorite like

toys and you'd bring them in both arms and then you'd like

shove them into your Fort. And then you would go into your

Fort. And that's that's where you

would play with like your favorite toys, right?

You'd hang out you you'd play it, it occupy you for, for at

least a few hours. Man, that was the best, right?

Well, kind of. At least it once was.

You see, a few years after that, several years down the road from

making pillow forts, you would experience for the first time

the exhilaration of being able to drive down the road with your

windows down on a nice day and feel the wind whipping through

your hair. Or you would you would discover

just the awe of the ocean, or the OR the mountains.

Maybe, maybe you would stand. Years later, you would stand at

A at an altar across from the love of your life and you'd

exchange vows to one another. Or you would be in a hospital

room and that doctor, that nurse, for the very first time,

would place that newborn baby into your arms.

Your new dad, your new mom, and thousands of other wow moments

that would all make the memories of how great we used to think

the pillow forts were pale in comparison.

Here's my point, Church. I'm convinced that a lot of us

are spiritually stuck in our pillow forts when God's calling

us to step out of our pillow forts, step out of our box, and

step into His global mission. So in order for us to step out

of our box, to step out of our pillow Fort and step into His

global mission, there's three choices that we've got to make

and we've got to make them this morning.

Here's the first choice is I've got to allow God to order my

life and to trust him with what follows.

I've got to allow God to order my life and to trust him with

what follows. Let me ask you a deeply, deeply

personal question in the room and online.

When's the last time that you just sat down with God in a

quiet space, in A at a quiet place uninterrupted and just

said, OK, God, here, here I am. I'm laying my whole life in

front of you. I'm laying it down like I'm not

holding anything back from you. God, you have my permission.

God, I'm asking, I'm begging you for your Holy Spirit to go to

the deep places of me that only your Holy Spirit can access.

And God, I want you to show me here in this, in this quiet,

just me and you. I want you to show me what in my

life needs to leave, it needs to go, what in my life needs to

stay and what in my life needs to needs to change that right

there. That is openness, vulnerability

and full on surrender to God. God here I am laying my life out

completely before you, holding nothing back.

God, you, you have, you have an all access pass to every part of

my life, not just like the highlight reels of me, but the

really nasty, dirty parts of me. God send your Holy Spirit to go

to the deep places that only he can access, that only he can get

to and show me the parts of me that need to change or that need

to go, that need to stay and need to change.

And I think it's out of that. I think it's out of that that we

begin to allow God to properly order our life and trust him

with what follows. Because the alternative is this,

Hey God, this is what I'm doing, will you bless it?

Church, can I challenge you with something?

We cannot afford to waste any more time wondering if we're on

the right track yet asking God to bless the decisions and the

choices that we've already made. If we understand that there's a

community around us, that there are people within our homes,

people within our families, people within our friend groups,

people within our community that need Jesus, that need the hope

of Jesus, we cannot afford to waste any more time wondering if

we're on the right track while at the same time asking God to

bless the decisions that we've already made.

You see, so many times, we'll get it out of order.

Hey God, this is what I've already decided to do.

Would you bless it along the way?

Well, what if that's not what God wants you to do?

You see, the first choice is this, allow God to order my life

and trust Him with what follows. Second decision is this.

Live like every person is made by God and is in need of God.

Live like every person is made by God and is in need of God.

Have you noticed that we live in a culture that is really

effective in monetizing division?

One of one of the buzzwords around church is this

discipling. Did you know you might you this

may be your first time in church and if this your first time in

church, welcome. Thank you so much for being

here. But did you know that you've

been discipled? You are being discipled.

Every single one of us is being discipled by something or

someone. And, and here's what we see to

be true is many, many people are discipled through cable news.

Many people are discipled by the algorithms of their social media

feeds and, and, and reels. And when we are become discipled

and when we become saturated and cable news and social media

algorithms and reels, here's what we tend to do is we start

to look at the people who don't like us and who are not like us

as issues to fix rather than people to love.

So in order for us to make the transition, to live like every

person is made by God in his need of God.

That means that we've got to pray differently.

Let me give you some handles of how we can pray differently.

It means that we pray differently for every single

person that we may encounter. In other words, the people that

like me, the people that they like me, I view that person not

as like necessarily, just first and foremost as a friend or a

fan or anything like that. I view that person as somebody

who is made by God in the image of God and in desperate need of

God. So I pray for them that way.

Or when you come across people who are like you, similar

interest, geography, political, whatever, similar interest, the

people who are like us, we've got to see them as people that

are made by God, in desperate need of God.

How about this, the people who don't like me?

He may say people don't like you.

Oh, yeah, I give people all kinds of reasons not to like me.

My mom will fight you. But no, the people that don't

like me, those aren't my enemies.

Those are people that are made by God in the image of God, in

desperate need of God. They're not in desperate need of

God because they have a bad opinion of Ben Wallace.

They're in desperate need of God because they're in desperate

need of God. Or how about this, the people

that are not like us, that that think differently, look

differently, talk differently, vote differently, the whole 9

yards. The people who are not like us,

they are people made in the image of God, made by God, in

desperate need of God. So guess what we do?

We go out into Jesus name and we lift up the gospel.

We we point people to the hope of Jesus, to people that are

hopeless. And guess what?

The people who like me, many of them are hopeless.

The people who are like me, many of them are hopeless.

The people who don't like me, many of them are hopeless.

The people who are not like me, many of them are hopeless.

Listen, it is about keeping Jesus first and foremost.

Paramount above it all, paramount above it all.

But I've got to live like every person is made by God and is in

need of God. Third this morning is exchange

my preferences for Kingdom effectiveness.

I've got to exchange my preferences for Kingdom

effectiveness. River Bend Church, one of my

honors, and I say this with with complete honesty, one of the

true honors of my life is to be able to to journey alongside and

to serve alongside of you. Do me a favor.

If you're in here, raise your hand.

Didn't do this in 930 service, but raise your hand.

If you have started coming here within the last six years, raise

your hand. Awesome.

If your hands raised, you've always known these seats before

these seats were here. You know what was here?

Pews. You know where the pews went out

those doors. Not because we tried to be cool

or, or contemporary or anything like that.

You know what we just started to realize is listen, if the church

exists, not for the church, but the church exists for the

community, the, the, the biggest flat area in on our entire

campus is in this room. And it's really hard to host

other people with pews in the way.

So what do we do? We remove the pews.

We put in chairs to where we can stack the chairs.

We can put the chairs against the wall.

We can rearrange the chairs however we want.

We need to rearrange the chairs. Do you know how many people

would prefer the pews? A lot going back to the going

back to the analogy that, that, that I gave, you know, shout to

the Lord. I think that the Holy Spirit of

God moves during that key change.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, go listen to it

and you'll get saved again. Can I let you own a secret?

I'm not the biggest fan of every song that we do, every song that

we sing here. But you know what?

It's not about me. It's not about me.

It's not about my preferences. It's about Kingdom

effectiveness. Listen, if, if, if you were to

look around this room, you would see the faces of men and women

that have chosen, that have lived so sacrificially and

they've laid down their preferences all for the sake of

Kingdom effectiveness. I would put Riverbend Church.

I would put you up against any church I've ever encountered,

any church that I've ever known of when it comes down to laying

down personal preferences and picking up Kingdom

effectiveness. But I'll go ahead and tell you,

sometimes it's very easy for that bug to kind of like jump

back up and nip at us. In those times.

I want to give you 3 questions to kind of walk through.

These aren't, these aren't in your notes.

This is really just for us to kind of hear.

If you want to jot them down, you can.

How do I exchange my preferences for Kingdom effectiveness?

First question, am I approaching this service as a consumer or as

a worshipper? That's convicting for me.

Let me kind of let you in kind of behind the scenes as, as I

like prep and plan for, for different series and different

messages. God gets to beat up on me a lot

earlier than than the messages preached.

So in a way I just get to pass along God's beating over me,

God's conviction. So these questions, they come

out of questions that God has like really convicted me on.

Am I approaching a Sunday morning service as a consumer or

as a worshipper? In other words, like I could

very easily go, man, I, I just don't, I don't, I don't like

that song, but that's OK. It wasn't sung to me.

It's not about me. I'm not a consumer.

I'm a worshipper. Was God's name lifted up #2

where's God stretching me to grow and guiding me to lead?

One of our, one of our core values as a church is growing

generations in Jesus, bringing people to Jesus, growing

generations in Jesus, sending disciples for Jesus.

Growing generations in Jesus means that there's not a single

one of us that God has finished with yet.

There's not a single one of us that God has finished growing

and stretching and guiding. And then the third question, are

people being transformed? And is God's Kingdom growing?

Are people being transformed? And is God's people, is God's

Kingdom, is it growing? Here's why I would tell you in

in so many ways, our call, our mission as a church is to do the

hard work of, of, of cutting through the noise and drilling

down to the main truths. And these are the main truths

that God loves people. God loves people and God has

chosen, God has chosen the church.

God has chosen us to be His instruments, to bring his hope

to the hopeless, His healing to the hurting, and His salvation

to the lost. So here's where we're going to

be ending things. This morning ended at the same

way 930 is. Our prayer is simply this.

God, would you send God? Would you rain revival down, not

just in Riverbend Church, but in this community?

Would you change lives? Would you change generations for

your glory? And here's where it starts.

It starts with each and every one of us praying for the one or

two people in our lives that we're pretty sure needs Jesus.

God, would you reach them in a way that only you can reach

them? God, I'm so willing to step

outside of my box, outside of my comfort zone of my own passions

and, and, and my own people and my own preferences.

God, I want to see your Kingdom grow.

God, I want this person to be a part of your Kingdom.

So here's the twofold call as we come to a close this morning.

Number one, I'm going to challenge you.

Lift up at least one person by name that you know needs Jesus.

Now here's a caveat. Some, some, we may struggle,

believe it or not, we may struggle to think of someone in

our lives that we're close to that needs Jesus.

That means that we've insulated ourselves way, way too much.

So our prayers, if you're struggling to, to, to name

someone in your life that needs Jesus, God, would you bring

somebody into my life that needs you?

That's your prayer. God, I want to pray for this

person by name. That's phase one.

Phase two. God, would you set a divine

appointment for me to where I will have the opportunity?

Will you set the stage for me this week so that I will have

the opportunity to share your hope with that person as your

pastor? I dare you to pray that.

I dare you to pray that. Because the people that we love,

guess what? God loves them more.

And as much as we want to be used as instruments in the hands

of a holy God, God desires to use you more.

But it's always going to start with prayer.

So would you pray with me? I'm going to pray over us.

And then we're going to open up this altar.

If you want to come down, pray for somebody by name.

If you want to stay where you are, pray for them by name.

But again, twofold prayer. Pray for the person by name.

And then God, send me. Excuse me.

God, we love you and we thank you for your word.

God, we thank you as we come to the end of of the book of Jonah

God, that through the life of Jonah, God, you show us a mirror

of how easy it is for us to wrongly assume that what matters

most to us must matter most to you.

God, would you help us to understand that what matters

most to you or or or or people? The people who like us, the

people who are like us, the people who don't like us and the

people who are not like us people.

There's not a single person on this planet.

There's not a single person in our neighborhood.

There's not a single person in our family.

There's not a single person in our workplace.

There's not a single person that we will cross paths with today

or this week that is not made by you in your image and therefore

precious God, would you help us to cut through the noise of

divisions and unnecessary barriers so that we can see

people as treasured masterpieces created by you that are in

desperate need of you. So God, in this time, God, we

lift up by name. The men and the women and the

students and the kids that are already close to your heart got

us. Lifting them up by name is US

simply putting ourselves in alignment with your heart and

God not just stopping there, but understanding that you have

chosen us to be instruments in your hands to reach that person.

So God, as we lift them up by name, God, we also follow up

that request by you by asking you to set a divine appointment

for us that we would have the opportunity to give your hope to

someone without hope, God, to be able to point someone that is

lost to a life that can only happen through you.

And it's in Jesus name that we pray.

Amen. Thank you for listening to the

Riverbend Church Podcast. Learn more about who we are as a

church and how to connect. You can head over to our

website, Riverbend Church dot Life.