True Repentance | Jonah: God's Mercy In My Mess (Part Five)

Thank you for listening to Riverbend Churches Podcast.

To find out more about this message or Riverbend Church,

connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.

This morning, if you're new to riverbed or maybe just new to

the series, we're going to continue on week five of a

series that we started through the book of Jonah.

It is called God's mercy in my mess.

And and if there's anything that moms or are most acquainted

with, it's messes, right, God's mercy in our mess.

And, and one of the things that we keep coming back to is no

matter how big your mess may may be, it, it, it doesn't, it

doesn't call it God to turn away.

It doesn't cause God to look at you any differently.

As a matter of fact, there's a theme and an overarching truth

and what we call the big idea throughout this series that if

you're new to the series, I want to introduce you to and I want

to get to invite you to just, if you're taking notes with us,

just jot this down. God's mercy is always greater

than my mess. God's mercy is always greater

than my mess. Again, that is without fine

print. That is without exception clause

that is without caveat, no matter how big your mess is, no

matter how long you've been in that mess, no matter how complex

that mess is. Listen, the hope is this is that

God's mercy is always greater than your mess.

God's mercy is always greater than my mess.

And we've been seeing this play out through the life of a man by

the name of Jonah And we we see God's faithfulness there in the

life of Jonah then and there. And one of the things that we're

going to look at this morning is how that same truth not only

applied to Jonah then and there, it also applies directly to us

here and now. So I want to invite you, if you

have a Bible with you to find Jonah chapter 2.

Jonah 2 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, no worries.

Passage is on the note sheet at the top of the note sheet.

And it's going to be on the screen.

And we're going to pick it up in verse 10 and we're chapter 2,

verse 10. But we'll read through this and

I want to give you a little bit of background info and then

we'll kind of summarize it to see how it actually matters to

to my life and to of your life this morning.

So here we go. Jonah 210 says the Lord spoke to

the fish. Jonah had already been in the

belly of the fish for three days and three nights and it vomited

Jonah out upon the dry land. Chapter 3.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying,

arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it

the message that I tell you. So Jonah rose and went to

Nineveh according to the word of the Lord.

Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, 3 days journey in

breath. And we talked all about that

last week when we talked about the God of second chances.

But this we're going to continue on just to give us a greater

context of what we're going to be talking about this morning.

First four Jonah began to go into the city going a day's

journey and he called out yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be

overthrown. Verse 5 and the people of

Nineveh believed God. They call for a fast, and put on

sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.

The word of the Lord reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose

from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with

sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued A proclamation and

published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his

nobles. Let neither man nor beast heard,

nor flock taste anything. Let them not feed or drink

water, but let man or beast be covered with sackcloth and let

them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from His evil

way and from the violence that is in His hands.

Verse 9. Who knows?

God may turn and relent and turn from His fierce anger so that we

may not perish. Chapter 3.

Verse 10. When God saw what they did, how

they turn from their evil way, God relented of the disaster

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

Now give you a little bit of background info.

You got this guy by the name of Jonah, 8th century BC prophet of

God. God's already called him once to

go to the people of Nineveh. Jonah said absolutely not,

actually went down to local seaport, booked a cruise going

in the opposite direction. But because God loved Jonah so

much and because God loved the people of Nineveh so much, God

sent this massive storm on the sea while Jonah was on a ship

heading 2500 miles east or West to where God had called him to

go. God sent that mighty storm

knowing that Jonah would end up being tossed overboard.

And then we read and and, and, and at the end of chapter 2 to

where God or the end of chapter 1 to where God appointed this

like great fish to swallow Jonah because God knew that Jonah

being in the belly of that fish, there in the belly of the fish,

Jonah would hit his rock bottom. And in the rock bottom moment of

Jonah, Jonah learned what it was like to let go of perceived

control. And something that we've been

coming back to throughout this series is somewhere in that time

period of three days and three nights in the belly of that

fish, Jonah looked at all the things that he could not

control. When he looked at all those

things, he began to panic when he realized that all those

things that he could not control God never lost control over.

He switched his panic over to prayer and by in in so doing, he

learned what it was like to be fully dependent on God.

Now, completely unbeknownst to Jonah, God was actually guiding

that fish back in the direction of Nineveh.

We we read, we just read and Jonah 210 to where the fish

vomited Jonah up. Raise your hand in here if you

had fish vomit on your Mother's Day bingo card.

Nobody. Pretty nasty one.

Gotcha. Awesome.

I thought it was 2 but they were scratching their head.

But God used that fish to be the nastiest, smelliest, smelliest

Uber in the history of mankind, deposited Jonah up on the Syrian

shore. And then from there, Jonah went

into the city of Nineveh. Now, just interesting side note,

maybe it's just interesting to me.

The people of Nineveh, they, they didn't worship God.

They actually worshipped a false God by the name of Dagon.

Anybody, anybody know what, how Dagon was most often depicted?

He was most often depicted as half man, half fish.

Also kind of interesting side note is Jonah being a being of

Middle Eastern descent, he was not white, all right.

So he had olive complected skin and most scholars believe that

that skin after after Jonah was in the belly of the fish for

three days and three nights. It's very, very likely

improbable that Jonah's skin was was forever permanently marked

and and some somewhat bleached, which me, which means that he

was really hard to miss and almost impossible to ignore.

So here you got this guy walking into strolling into Nineveh, you

know, with a, with a word from the Lord, who is absolutely

impossible to miss and really hard to ignore.

But the passage that we just read is Jonah goes into the city

and, and, and what was his message?

What was the message that God gave to Jonah?

Go, go back to Jonah 3 to where it says in 40 days, yet 40 days.

Keep going for me, Chris. There we go.

Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

That was the message. That was the message of Jonah.

And then what do we see happening?

We see, we see the people of Nineveh actually believed Jonah,

believed God. And then they started to change

their actions. They started to change their

ways. And the Bible tells us that that

God saw that they believed him and God saw that they had turned

from their ways. So he relented from his plans to

destroy the city. Now here's what I'll tell you

the main message. If I were to summarize Jonah's

message here yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be destroyed.

If I were to summarize it into one word, it's the word repent.

It's the word repent. You see, 750 years after this

message was preached to the people of Nineveh and revival

fell on the city of Nineveh, Jesus of Nazareth is going to

start his ministry. He's going to come out of the

wilderness after being tested for 40 days and 40 nights.

And his message is this, repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at

hand. And then he's going to say, he's

going to go on to say things like, hey, unless you repent,

you likewise will perish. Now here in lies, probably the

greatest lie or the nuances of the greatest lie that I believe

that, that that, that that mankind has swallowed and

believed. And I believe that this lie is

probably responsible, the most responsible for sending more

people to hell than any other, any other lie.

If you're taking notes with us, let me show you a lie that we

often believe. Here it is the lie that we often

believe is remorse is the same as repentance.

Remorse is the same as repentance.

Let me let me kind of unpack remorse for just a moment.

Remorse is it is an emotion. Remorse is, is a weight of

guilt. It is a weight of maybe shame,

maybe, maybe a guilt of, of a weight of consequences.

Maybe it's even the, the, the weight of embarrassment we've

all experienced. Remorse, like remorse is

communicated through our words. Like, man, I really, I really

wish that that hadn't happened. Man, I really, I really feel bad

about that. I wish that, I wish that they'd

gone a different way. And even though there's so many

tag lines and so many phrases that we can speak to the heart

of remorse, I think that remorse most often shows up in our

actions, in our actions. If you're taking notes with us,

I want to give you 3, three types of actions of our remorse.

And I just want to see if they it maybe maybe with you this

morning in the room or online, maybe maybe some of these

resonate with you to where you will find that you have been

taking these actions of remorse and you've been equating them

with repentance. And like I said, the law is

remorse is the same as repentance.

So let's kind of unpack the three options or the three

actions. Here's the first one.

Apologies, apologies. It is the quick to say, hey, I'm

sorry. It's the quick to say I'm sorry

without deeper conversation. It is the IT is the quick to

move on and and just try to get closure.

Dudes are great at this, Like, like, if we feel really

remorseful or really bad, here's what we do.

We just go up somebody and go, hey, man, we're good, right?

Yeah, we're good. And we think that we just had

some emotional bonding moment. Listen, apologies, apologies.

We should become very, very well acquainted with this notion of

saying, hey, listen, I'm sorry I blew it.

Apology should always be the starting point because if

apologies are just the starting point, but yet the stopping

point, I'll go ahead and tell you nothing really ever changes,

right? And we all know this to be true.

Like we all have relationships, maybe friendships in our lives

or maybe even former friendships in our lives to where an

apology. It was a starting point, but it

was also the stopping point. And you know from your own

personal experience that nothing ever changed.

The the second way that remorse expresses itself through action,

not just apologies, but also avoidance.

Avoidance. You ever know that you really

like messed up a situation or you said something that you

shouldn't have said or you didn't say something that you

should have said, or, or you did something that really hurt

somebody or offended somebody. And, and you just kind of sit

there and go, hey, they're, they're across the room.

I'm going to like hug this wall over here.

You try to avoid them, you just don't go near them.

And, and one of the things that our culture swallows hook line

and sinkers this notion, Hey, Tom heals all wounds.

And we, we, we believe that. We start to internalize that and

we start to believe that to where we sit there and go, Hey,

listen, if I just wait out the situation, it's really weird and

awkward now. But if I just wait it out, maybe

he'll forget or she'll forget and we can just act like we're

good like high 5 again later on. Avoidance also looks like trying

to avoid or intentionally avoiding any type of of deep

connection with somebody getting at the root of an issue.

And it also always includes the avoidance of any type of

accountability that that's, that's avoidance.

Listen, here's where I would tell you distance.

Distance is, is easy. Distance is easy.

Change is hard. Transformation is hard, but a

lot of times we, we, we sit there and we just avoid the

person. Why?

Because we feel deeply remorseful.

And I think there's a third way that that our remorse kind of

comes out through actions. And it's adjustments.

It's adjustments. Here's what I mean by

adjustments. It's this, it's this decision.

And maybe you've been here on a Sunday morning to where you have

really felt God moving in your spirit.

Kind of there's this moon tugging on your heart and

instead of surrendering to him, you just make the decision.

Hey, I'm just going to try harder.

I'm going to be better for a short amount of time.

I'm going to white knuckle it. And here's where I would tell

you if minor adjustments actually brought about true and

lasting transformation, you would have already done it by

now. So again, the law that we so

often believe is that remorse is the same as repentance.

And here's why I would tell you it most definitely is not.

That is the law. But what is the truth that God

wants us to see this morning? Here we go, here's the truth.

Repentance is always faith-based and action evidenced.

Repentance is always faith-based and action evidence.

Don't miss this in that order, in that order.

Here's why it's so important that it's in that order because

a lot of us, we think that repentance is action evidence

and and throw in a little faith there.

Can I tell you that repentance, repentance is nothing or or

salvation from God is nothing that you could ever earn.

It's not about like trying harder and being better.

It's all about first and foremost faith-based.

Let me show you what I mean by faith-based.

I want to go back, let's go back to Jonah's like amazing earth

shattering revolve city rocking revival message.

Check this out. Jonah began to go into the city

go on a day's journey and he called out yet 40 days and

Nineveh shall be overthrown and the people of Nineveh believed

God. They called for a fast and put

on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.

The message you got this Israelite going into the capital

city of Assyria. And if you if you want to know

more about just how gruesome the people of Assyria were and what

they would do to their enemies, go back to in our archives.

You can go back and listen to week one.

We talked about how the Assyrian army, they were notorious.

They were notorious for cutting off the legs and one arm of

their victims so that they could shake the other hand of their

victim while he slowly died. And yet Jonah is charged, going

into the city with this message of God 1/3 of the way in yet 40

days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

And instead of him being torn from limb to limb, the people

repented. Now here's what I would guess is

that morning before Jonah ever walked into town, the people of

Nineveh, they got up like they had their every single day

before that. They went about their morning

routines. They went about their early

afternoon routines. Not really concerned about a

relationship with God, not really concerned about their

spiritual life. Here's why and don't miss this.

The people of Nineveh had a mistaken interpretation of their

situation. Let me say that again.

When the people of Nineveh woke up that morning and before they

heard the words of Jonah, they had a mistaken interpretation of

their situation. You may say, Ben, what in the

world does that mean? Well, based off of the word of

God, here was the reality of their situation. 40 days,

Nineveh's going to be completely destroyed.

It's going to be wiped out. 40 days, 960 hours, 57,600 minutes,

40 days. Everything that you have worked

for, none of it's going to matter anymore.

Everything that you love and that you cherish and that you've

sacrificed for and you've actually become really good at,

none of that's going to matter anymore. 40 days and all of it's

going to be destroyed. That was the reality of their

situation. Can I tell you this church, I

happen to believe and, and maybe maybe you're here with us this

morning in the room or with us online, that the number one

reason, the main reason that people go unconcerned, maybe the

main reason that you go unconcerned outside of Sunday

mornings about your relationship with God is because you have a

mistaken interpretation of your situation.

It is not the main reason that you go unconcerned about your

relationship with God. It is not the fact that you've

experienced past church hurt and trauma.

It is not the church is full of hypocrites.

It is not the church is seen as judgmental.

And sadly, all of those things can be true, but none of those

things are the main reason. The main reason is because you

and I, we have a mistaken interpretation of our situation.

Here's what I mean, someone with a mistaken interpretation of

their situation. And, and you may be, you may be

in here with us this morning. I'm so glad that God brought you

here this morning because you may have said these things, you

may have thought these things, things like, well, deep down,

I'm, I'm a good person. Hey, my good outweighs my bad.

And that's got to count from something.

My favorite is, Hey, I've never killed anybody, which to that I

say high 5. Or how about this?

How about hey, Ben, God, God knows my heart.

Or then I I'm just not convinced that a loving God would ever

send anyone like me to hell. You see, if you said anything

like that or you've thought anything like that or any

similar phrases kind of like that, I want to as kindly yet as

urgently tell you. You my friend, have a mistaken

interpretation of your situation and just like the people of

Nineveh, every second that that ticks by is a second that we are

closer to standing before a holy God and giving account to to him

of our lives. The mistaken interpretation of

your situation. Let me give you the reality of

your situation. Jonah goes into Nineveh, yet 40

days, Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Here's the reality of all of our situations that every single one

of us, we have sinned and fallen short of the glory or the

perfect standard of God, but the wages or the price of sin, It's,

it's, it's death. But the good news is, is that

God loved us so much that even while we were still sinners, He

sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for us, so that if we believe in

our hearts and confess with our mouth that He is Lord or boss

over our lives and that Jesus rose from the dead, we will be

saved. Why is that important?

Because the Bible is very clear that is appointed for man to die

once and then the judgment. So what does that that that

appointed once to and then the judgement.

Here's the thing, you and I, we have no idea the time of our

passing because what is your life but amidst who was here in

the morning but gone later on in the day.

So what does all that mean? It means that today is the day

of salvation. That is the reality of the

situation at hand. But remember how I said that

repentance is always faith-based and it is always action

evidenced. Let me show you what I mean.

If you look at the top of your note sheet.

If you look at the top of your note sheet, I want you to circle

or to to underline maybe to highlight a phrase It says Jonah

began to go into the city going today's journey and he called

out yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown and the

people of people of Nineveh believed God.

Here's what I want to ask that you do circle or underline that

phrase. And the people of Nineveh

believed God. The people of Nineveh believe

God. Let me kind of unpack what that

means. It means that the people of

Nineveh believed a man that they did not know and they began to

worship. They believed a God that they

had not previously worshipped. It means that for the very first

time, they no longer had a mistaken interpretation of their

situation. It means for the very first

time, they realized in 40 days, this guy's God is going to

destroy us. We believe Him, We believe him.

It is always faith-based. It's always faith-based.

Again, it is a belief that God is God and I am not.

It is a belief that that even though I may consider myself so

unlovable and so far gone from Him, I'm never beyond His reach.

It is a belief that that, that, listen, I may have run 1000

miles away from God, but he is just one step back.

It is faith in God that, that that's, that's where it, that's

where it starts. That's where it starts.

And then it's not only faith-based, but it's actioned

evidenced, it's action evidenced.

Here's what I mean by action evidence.

Look at what the people of Nineveh did.

The king of Nineveh says, who knows?

God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we

may not perish. Here's what I want to ask that

you do. Circle, highlight or underline

those words. Who knows?

Who knows? Can we just get something out in

the open? You, you, you may not have grown

up in church. You may be very new to church.

You may know a lot about the Bible.

You may know very little about the Bible.

I think that we would all agree in the room and online those two

words. Who knows is not a resounding, A

resounding like firmness of a mature faith, right?

I mean, it's not this like this like, hey, here we stand type of

faith. It's not a mature faith.

I don't even think that it's a fully fleshed out faith.

I don't even think that the king of Nineveh, when he says, hey,

who knows, is the full assurance of faith.

However, don't miss this. It was faith nonetheless.

Can I, can I remind you something?

Can I give you some really good news?

It is not the amount of faith that you have.

It is the object of your faith that makes all the difference.

So you may be with us. You may have grown up in church.

This may be your first time in church.

This may be your first time in a long time in church.

You do not have to wait till you have everything figured out.

You don't have to. You don't have to wait till you

have all the answers to the great existential questions of

philosophy and and theology. It is God.

I believe you. God, for the very first time I

believe that I have been living with a mistaken interpretation

of my identity and I need to turn to you.

God, I believe you. But listen, it doesn't just stop

at faith. It doesn't just stop at faith.

Our faith is always evidenced by our actions.

Let me show you what I mean is the people of Nineveh.

I love how the king of Nineveh, he puts it in at towards the end

of Jonah 3 to where he says these words.

He says, by the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither

man nor beast heard nor flock taste anything.

Let them not feed or drink water, but let man or beast be

covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God.

Let everyone turn from his evil way.

Check this. Let everyone turn from his evil

way and from the violence that is in his hands.

Who knows, God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce

anger so that we may not perish. You see the people of Nineveh,

they realize that what they were doing was sinful and evil.

You see, the first step of repentance is acknowledging and

believing God. The second step is acknowledging

that what you and I are a part of apart from God is sin and

it's evil. The the, the truest definition

of repentance is going One Direction, stopping, and then

going the other direction. Can I tell you this?

Remorse. Remorse may cry over sin.

Repentance leaves sin, it leaves sin.

Think of it this way. Repentance is actually trusting

God enough to change and and here's here's the simplicity and

the beauty of the gospel. Repentance is faith-based and

action evidenced again in that order.

But you can actually reverse engineer that and go, hey,

listen, I'm, I'm not sure if I'm truly a follower of Jesus or

not. Well, here's what I would ask

you, has your, has there been life change?

Has there been life change? Because here's what I would tell

you. A life that is surrendered to

Jesus, so that is changed by the Holy Spirit of God himself is

never the same, is never the same.

You may have had a deep moment of emotional remorse to where

you felt really bad about some decisions of your past, but

remorse is not the same as repentance.

Remorse is not the same as repentance.

Let me tell you kind of how this story is going to go on to end.

This is this is well on the well on past the pages of the book of

Jonah, 50 years after after revival fell in Nineveh, Assyria

had a king by the name of Shallow Man Sir the 5th Shallow

man Sir the 5th led his armies for modern day Mosul, Iraq West

to the northern Kingdom of Israel and completely destroyed

and sacked the city of Samaria, Jonah's hometown.

And for that reason, there's a lot of writers and scholars and

preachers and teachers that they would argue that revival didn't

really fall on Nineveh that day, that it was more of a remorse

thing than it was a repentance thing.

I don't agree with that. And here's why I don't agree

with that. It's because the two core

elements of repentance, believing God and turning from

your sinful, evil ways. They did that.

Here's what I believe happened. Church.

I believe the revival generation of the people of Nineveh in the

days of, of Jonah, man, it was greatly celebrated.

But those people that experienced revival on that day,

they failed to pray it, pray it forward and to pass it on.

And because they, they failed, that generation failed to pray

it forward and to pass it on. Guess what?

They're kids. They admired what God did in the

life of their parents. And then the next generation to

come on the scene, they completely abandoned the God who

had shown great, such great mercy and grace on their

grandparents. And, and so doing they return to

their former, former, former sinful ways.

Listen to me very, very closely, Church.

We are always one generation away from just mere admiration

of God and always 2 generations away from complete abandonment

of God. That leaves us, every single one

of us in the room, every single one of us online.

That leaves us in one of two camps.

Here's camp #1 camp number one. I am in personal need of revival

in my life. I personally need revival.

Then I have, I have thought. I thought maybe for years, Maybe

I've thought for the very first time that I truly repented.

But now I can tell that there's been no life change.

And because there's been no life change, I can tell you it wasn't

repentance, it was remorse. Then I, I, I need to let go of

that lie. That remorse is the same as

repentance. And I need to, for the very

first time, I need to believe God.

I need to trust God. I need to surrender my life to

God. In just a moment, we're going to

pray and we're going to have some pastors down here at the

front that would love to pray with you and to walk with you

through that process. And I would even acknowledge

that on a day like this and with this many people in the room and

join us online, probably many of us would sit there and go, yeah,

I've surrendered my life. I've, I've repented.

I'm, I'm not perfect, but I've, I've repented.

Here's my challenge to you. Would you?

I'm going to make it like, let's make it uncomfortable.

Would you believe God enough to realize that He has created you

for this moment, for such a time as this, to where the reality of

the fact that we are one generation away from just mere

admiration of God and two generations away from complete

abandonment of God. Would you be willing in just a

moment to get up out of your seat, to come kneel and to pray

for revival to start in your home, in your family, in your

neighborhood? You may be like Ben.

I don't, I don't know what's more important, your

uncomfortableness, A revival coming to the people around you.

So we're going to give you an opportunity to do just that in

just a moment. Would you pray with me, God?

You are the God who is holy and who is just.

God who does not tolerate sin. God, you, Your offer of

salvation is not to sweep our sin under the rug.

God, your offer of salvation is for us to exchange your judgment

for Your grace. And just like the people of

Nineveh an 800 BC God, all that requires it is for us to believe

that you are the one true God and that you loved us so much

that you sent Jesus into this world to die for our sins.

That if we believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord and we

confess with our mouth that you raised him from the dead.

God, you promise we will be saved.

God, would you help us to realize that repentance is far

deeper, yet is the only way that we can experience true

transformation, true rebirth, true new life.

God, remorse may make us feel good in a moment, but it brings

about no change. God, what you offer to us this

morning is a deep soul level change, but God, it requires our

surrender to you. God, for those who have

surrendered their lives to you. God, you have placed every

single one of us in circles and spheres of influence, whether

they be in our own home, in our own neighborhood, in our own

workplace, in our own family and our own friend group.

God, our call this morning is not that we would just come and

meet on a Sunday morning, but God that we would be the

beginning Ground Zero of a great revival that sweeps our area.

And God help us to understand that that revival, it starts

with us. It starts with us on our knees,

praying that you feel us, that you revive us.

And God, that that revival within us becomes an overflow to

the people around us. God, I pray that you would help

Lord the the the vision of changed lives in a changed

community and forgiven friends and forgiven family members.

God their eternity with you. God, that that would far

outshine any of our hesitations, any of our concerns, and any of

our pride. God, that that would drive us to

our knees in full surrender to you.

God, we pray that revival would come and it's in Jesus name that

we pray. Amen.

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