Merciful One: We Are The Mess (Jonah 01)

Right.

It is so good to see you today.

And it is so good to be in the house of the Lord today.

And if you have your Bibles want to open up with me, we are going to be in the first part of a brand new series today entitled, Come on now, Tim, help me out here.

Yeah, Merciful One.

Very good.

You get your Bibles out.

We're going to be walking through the gospel, the gospel, the Old Testament book.

I'm still in Matthew, I think.

If you know, you know, okay?

Even after all this time, I'm still in Matthew, but we're going to be in Jonah, and you're going to need a second, I get it, to find that book of the Bible.

My recommendation for you is go to the book of Matthew and then hang a left, okay?

He is right there toward the end of the Old Testament, and we're going to be diving into that.

So I'm going to give you just a second to find all of that.

While you are doing that, if this is your first time joining us, welcome.

Thank you so much for being here today.

And we would love for you at some point in the service to fill out your connect card and you can drop that off by the Welcome Center because we have a free gift for you today.

And we would love to give you a free Bible so that next week you can struggle along with the rest of us as you are trying to find the book of Jonah.

I see some of you sweating as you're trying to find it.

Here's a tip.

Just stop where you are and nobody will know the difference, okay?

They will think that you found it.

All right.

And so as we are getting started and getting ready to jump into this, the book of Jonah, I think, is an amazing book of the Bible.

But the challenge is a lot of times is when we know the book of Jonah or any other book based on one story, we kind of forget the rest of it.

Like if when I counted three, I want you to tell me who, you know, the number one thing you think of when you think of the book of Jonah.

And this is going to be chaos.

Here we go.

One, two, three.

Fish, whale, whale fish, fish whale.

Yeah, yeah.

The whale.

Okay, yes, absolutely.

But my hope is, is by the time we get through with this series, it'll be completely different.

And we'll get into that in just a second.

But to kind of get us started on this, I want to see if we can kind of get on the same page here and kind of ask you a question.

How many of you have ever been to an escape room?

Anybody, anybody want to lie and tell me you've been to an escape room?

Yeah, thank you for the rest of that.

I I don't know if you've ever been in one of these.

It's it's a it's like a real life puzzle.

You go into a room and they lock you in there, and you get to figure out how to get yourself back out of there by going through these different puzzles.

And my wife and I have found the perfect way to get out every time.

And that is we always invite really smart people with us, and then we cheer them on as they figure it out, right?

Well, one time we went to this escape room and we went in, and it was this little bitty, like tiny room.

I mean, it was like like really small, slightly claustrophobic.

And we're trying to figure out how to get out of here.

And we're going looking through different things, and we come across this key, and we don't really know what to do with this key, so we're like, I'm sure it'll be important later.

And we just kind of keep it with us as we're looking.

And finally, at some point, we notice in the wall there was like kind of a hidden doorway.

And when we find the hidden doorway, we we realize there's a key.

And so we put the key in the keyhole, and it opened up to this huge room.

I mean, the room was like four times as big as this little room, and we were like, that this is a better place to be.

And so we go in there and it turned out to be so much fun.

It was, it was massively big, and it opened up into another room, and it was so great.

And we finally got out of there, by the way.

We got out of there on time with like a minute to spare.

And when we were walking back through the hallway, we looked at the original room and we were like, man, we had no idea how much bigger this thing was.

If we'd only stayed in that room, we wouldn't have had near as much fun.

Well, I think that is exactly the way we could think of the book of Jonah.

Is for many of us, we think of the book of Jonah and we think of a couple little stories that have to do with a fish, and we're just like, there it is, and we move on.

But I think that there is a key that if we could grab onto this one key, it would open up this book of the Bible because this is one of my favorite Old Testament books, and my hope is that maybe it will be yours.

And the idea is that if all we see is a fish having a bro for dinner, we've missed the beauty of the story.

And so you may leave and be like, I still think the fish is awesome.

That's cool, but I want you to know that's not all that there is.

And so what I want to do is I want to talk about the book overall, and then we're gonna dive in a little bit deeper.

And for those of you who take notes, praise the Lord.

Okay, listen, there is a QR code for you to scan, and I will give you all these extra notes because you can't write that fast, because you know, all y'all know how fast I can talk.

Okay, so let's jump in, jump into this.

The Old Testament book of Jonah is actually unique among all the other prophetic books.

Did you realize this?

All the other Old Testament prophetic books are talking about the message, the message that God has for the nation of Israel.

The book of Jonah is different because it's talking about the messenger and the experience that he had trying to give a message to someone that wasn't in the nation of Israel.

Because this was a time when actually the nation of Israel was doing really well.

They were prospering, everything on the outside looked good, but on the inside, spiritually, they were dying, but everything looked good on the outside.

And God sent Jonah to tell another nation that it was time to repent, and he didn't want to.

Here's another one.

This book, actually, to this day, by Jewish people, it is read every year on the Day of Atonement, because the Day of Atonement is a day when they will spend the full day praying and asking God for forgiveness and their need of his mercy.

And what it reminds them is that God will grant mercy both to nations and to people.

And then another one is it's actually meant to be read as satire.

Like the Jewish people realize this book was meant to be read as a sort of comedy.

Like Jonah wrote this going, This was the most ridiculous thing ever.

You're not gonna believe this silly thing happened, and then that silly thing happened.

He realizes how ridiculous this story is.

And so he is writing this going, only God, because what happened to me was crazy.

And so we're gonna read this and notice how he is having fun, going, it got worse and it got worse, but God was good.

And then I love how it shows what real life really looks like.

I don't know about you, but but when I look at like Elijah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, I think they're like perfect.

They do great.

But the Bible shows us that these were just people.

The only perfect one to ever live was Jesus.

Everybody else got the same 99 issues we do.

And Jonah's got like 90, 99 and a half.

I mean, he's got a lot of issues.

And so, what's the key, just like in the escape room, that if we could unlock it, we would get so much more out of the book of Jonah.

Here's three main focuses, and one of these is the key to understanding the story.

Jonah, Nineveh, which is where he was told to go, and then God.

One of these three, and you can look at it through the lens of one of these three and get a different kind of idea.

But I think the real key to understanding and unlocking the book of Jonah is in one of these.

So let's let's dive in and look at Jonah.

So here's something maybe you didn't know about Jonah.

Jonah was actually trained by a guy named Elisha, most likely.

If you don't know who that is, probably the most famous prophet in the Old Testament was a guy named Elijah.

And then his predecessor was a guy named Elijah, really close.

And Elisha most likely did more miracles than anybody else in the Old Testament.

That's the guy that trained Jonah.

And so also Jonah was probably the most popular prophet of his day.

Popular.

Thank you, Spellcheck, for not catching that.

I guess that maybe is a word.

I don't know.

Most popular prophet in the Old Testament.

Or excuse me, in his day.

As a matter of fact, he was the prophet that was saying, God is prospering our nation.

Everybody loves that guy.

And so he was probably the leading prophet in the nation at the time.

He's mentioned by Jesus.

And here's something crazy about him.

He rebelled because of God's mercy and his hatred of the Assyrians.

God was going to proclaim mercy and he didn't want him to do it.

Kind of a kind of a crazy thing.

Well, who is he proclaiming mercy on?

And maybe if that's not the key, maybe it's the people that God was trying to judge.

Here's the people God's trying to adjudge.

That's the people in Nineveh.

And they were the rising power at the time.

They were becoming the most powerful empire, and they were exceptionally brutal.

Like I don't even want to tell you.

You go to my blog and I'll show some of the things.

One of the things, just to tell you how brutal they were, their favorite way to decorate their homes was with the skulls of the people they conquered.

Berutal people, all right?

They would put it as a centerpiece on their table and went, Isn't that pretty?

I mean, that's how brutal they were.

All right.

They were ruled, they ruled by terror.

They were the the Old Testament version of terrorists, like Al-Qaeda.

They were the greatest enemy of Israel and probably the largest city in the world at the time.

And these are the people that God told Jonah, I want you to go tell them that judgment is coming unless they repent.

Sure.

Okay.

That was what he had to deal with.

And so we have three main focuses, but obviously, if we want to understand and unlock the book of Jonah, like we unlocked the escape room and saw so much more, is if we realize that Jonah is not the point of the story.

Nineveh is not the point of the story.

God is the hero of this story.

And the big idea, if we can grab onto this, is that if we can be the ones to see God's mercy in every mess, it'll unlock the book of Jonah.

We talked about the first of the year that our key phrase this year was be the one.

We're not going to stand on our backfoot anymore, but we're going to lean in.

We're going to be the one to go first.

We're going to be the one to take next steps with the Lord.

And I want to encourage you in this series to be the one to see God's mercy in every mess.

Look at your neighbor and say, you're just a mess.

Look at somebody else and say, no, you're a piece of work, is what you are, right?

Yes.

We just finished that series.

We're a piece of God's work.

We're a piece of work.

So thank goodness that we can see God in every mess, in every mess, because you're sitting beside one, right?

And I think that if Jonah were to sum all this up in one statement, he would say that God is overflowing in mercy.

No matter how many mess we make.

Somebody give me a better amen.

Isn't that wonderful?

It doesn't matter how many messes we make, God is overflowing in mercy.

So let's define mercy.

And then we're going to jump into chapter one.

There's so many ways you could, but we're going to define mercy as God meeting us in every mess.

Mercy is undeserved kindness.

It's meeting us in every single mess.

And I think if we can see the book of Jonah, and if we can take and unlock it by seeing God's mercy in every single chapter, we'll go from thinking of it as just a guy who had a bad day with a fish to seeing God do amazing things.

And if God can do it for Jonah, a guy who went in the opposite direction of what God wanted, what do you think he can do in my life?

And what can he do in your life?

And so that's what we want to do is we want to jump into this and see what God's Word has to say.

Here we go.

God said at chapter one of Jonah, the Lord gave the message to Jonah, the son of Amitai, get up and go to the great city of Nineveh.

Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.

But Jonah did get up, but he went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord.

Remember, he's saying this as satire, going, I went, I got up just like God told me to, but I went the opposite direction.

He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish.

He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish.

But the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart.

Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship.

But all this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold.

So the captain went down to him and said, How can you sleep at a time like this?

He shouted.

Then the crew cast lots to see which of them had offended the gods and caused the terrible storm.

And when they did this, the lots identified Jonah as the culprit.

Why has this awful storm come down on us?

They demanded, Who are you?

Who is your what is your line of work?

What is the country you are from?

What is your nationality?

Or as we would say, from where I come from, who's your mom and them?

Let's get to the bottom of this and figure this out.

And he said, I'm a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, Yahweh, the God of heaven who made the sea and the land.

And when they were like, Oh, you offended that God, the big one, the one over everything, the sailors were terrified when they heard this, for he'd already told them that he was running away from the Lord.

Oh, why did you do it?

They groaned.

And since the storm was getting worse all the time, they asked him, What should we do to stop this storm?

Throw me into the sea, Jonah said, and it will become calm again.

I know that this terrible storm is all my fault.

Instead, the sailors rode even harder to get the ship to the land.

But the stormy sea was too violent for them and they couldn't make it.

Then they cried out to the Lord, Jonah's God, oh Lord, they pleaded, don't make us die for this man's sin.

In other words, this is on him, my friend.

All right, don't hold us responsible for his death.

Oh Lord, you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons.

Then the sailors picked up Jonah and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once.

That's God's way of saying thank you.

And the sailors were awestruck by the Lord's great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him.

Now the Lord had arranged Nemo to swallow Jonah.

And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.

That's called a really bad day.

Okay?

Yes.

And there's really two ways you can look at this.

You can look at this as a guy whose day goes from bad to worse, or you can look at this and go, wow, look at the mercy of God.

Because remember, the key to unlocking the book of Jonah is when we realize that God is with us in every mess.

That helps us to see that God's mercy shines when we, and if you're taking analog notes, I want you to circle that word we, when we are the mess.

Somebody say amen.

God's mercy is amazing, and God's mercy is good.

And the book of Jonah teaches us that God's mercy is with us and he meets us in every mess, even when we are the mess.

Once again, look at your neighbor and say, You're just a piece of work.

You're just a piece of work.

I don't know if you've ever heard this phrase before, but but let's get really honest for just a moment.

Let's get really honest, and that is everyone has a private battle no one knows about.

But here's the honest part.

Can we just listen?

I'm not gonna put this on you, I'm gonna put this on me in mine.

About 80% of those battles are not random.

Just me.

Okay, all right.

Everyone has a private battle, no one else knows about.

About, and I was being kind.

Can we go 90, 95, 97, 99, 90?

A bunch of those, they're not random.

Many of those, the common denominator is me.

Okay, that's unfortunately a lot of times the problem.

And you know what's crazy is that God loves us anyway, and that God's mercy is not just for the perfect, God's mercy is not just for the people with the halos.

God's mercy is for those of us who just can't seem to get it right.

God's mercy is for those who think we know better.

God's mercy is for those where the Bible says, though the righteous may fall down six times, they get back up again.

If we were to interpret that ourselves, it would be though the righteous fall 9,996 times, we get back up again.

And I think that if we could use the key of seeing the book of Jonah, not through the lens of a guy having a bad day, but through the lens of God's mercy, it would unlock how we totally see this book.

And that's the question I want to ask you today is what do we see when we use the key of God's mercy to read this chapter?

Because if we just look at it as a story, then we see a guy named Jonah who had a really bad day.

And that's all we see.

But if we see it through the lens of God's mercy, then we see hope.

We see the possibility that if perchance you're not perfect, God is not gonna throw you away.

He's gonna go to great lengths to reach you.

And they're not always gonna be fun, they're not always gonna be easy, but God will not stop pursuing you all the days of your life.

And so let's look at this and let's just go ahead and say, Isn't God good?

Look at somebody and say, Isn't God good?

If you're a little bit more cultured, you can say, Ain't God good?

Okay.

The only thing you're not allowed to say is, isn't the Lord amazing?

Okay, you can't say that because here's the first one God is amazing, his mercy shines even when we are the problem.

Now, if you've never been the problem, then please shine your halo and you just celebrate the Lord that you are not like the rest of us, because I I but I but I bet there's a couple of us that can identify with Jonah's story a little bit more than we'd like to admit.

That sometimes God's mercy shines because we need it so badly, because we are the problem.

Look at what it said.

It said the Lord gave this message to Jonah, get up and go to the city of Nineveh.

Now pause.

That's a big deal.

These are their number one enemies.

These jokers are brutal, they're collecting skulls.

And he's but here's the thing: Jonah is the most famous prophet in Israel.

He's probably the leading prophet in Israel.

He's like, You're the man.

I've prepared you for this.

So I want you to go to Nineveh.

And Jonah was like, sure, I'll get up, but I'm gonna go the opposite direction to get away from the Lord.

He found a ship leaving for Tarshish and he bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish.

Now, the reason why that says escape, most scholars believe what he was doing is he was actually leaving from the temple because he was thinking about God, that being the focus of his presence in the temple.

So he was leaving and he was resigning as a prophet.

He was saying, I don't want any more of this.

God's telling me to go this way, but honestly, he was saying, God's wrong.

God's wrong.

We're gonna find out in chapter four because he hated the Assyrians because of how bad they were, and he didn't want God to be merciful to them.

So he was saying, God was wrong.

I don't want to tell you this, but every once in a while, my my mouth says, I trust the Lord, but my actions seem to look like I think God is wrong.

But the reality is, is God's not wrong because this is what happened.

He told him to go to Nineveh.

That's about 500 miles, it's about a month's travel.

Okay, that's that's not nothing.

That he was telling him, This is my big idea for you.

I want you to watch what I can do to this horrible nation.

And Jonah was like, that sounds great.

I'm gonna go the other way.

2,000 miles.

As a matter of fact, to the people of the time, the city of Tarshish, which was over close to around here, you know, off the map, was the furthest place to the west you could go.

This was the edge of the map.

He was literally leaving the edges of the map not to obey the Lord.

That's called being your number one problem.

God tells you to go right, and you're saying, How quickly can I go the other way?

So let me say it to you again.

Everyone has a private battle no one else knows about.

But about 80% of those battles are not random.

I had a friend of mine tell me a story one time.

He said, Pastor, I want you to pray for me because I'm really struggling in my finances right now.

And my friend had knew that this guy had just got through buying a brand new car.

And he was like, Okay, well, let's let's talk about it.

What's going on?

He said, I just want you to pray for me.

I don't know why God's testing me in my finances, but I just need you to pray.

Okay, well, what happened?

Well, so I did get this new car, right?

Well, here's the thing like two days before I got this new car, I got fired.

But I was already scheduled to go get this new car.

So I went ahead and went and got the car just knowing God was gonna bail me out.

That's called stupid, okay?

That that is not God's fault.

Okay, you did that to yourself, right?

And that's what sometimes we have this idea of going, I'm sure God will get on board.

I'm sure God will be okay.

I know God wants me to be holy, but I want to do me.

I know God is telling me that I need to get married and honor them, but I just rather keep my freedom and do these things the way I want to do.

I know I should tithe and give my finances to God, but I want to do it my way.

And then we wonder why we get into the troubles that we get into.

But the amazing thing about God is God meets us in every one of our messes.

God meets us in every time we need his mercy, which is God meeting us in our mess, and God wants to help us.

He gets that we don't have this perfectly.

This is what God actually tells us.

He says, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives.

Why?

Because then you won't do what your sinful nature craves.

Then you won't take a left when God's telling you to take a right, because the sinful nature wants to do evil, which is the opposite of what the Spirit wants.

These two forces are constantly fighting each other.

So you are not free to carry out your good intentions.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

So, in other words, everything that our hearts long for.

Because ultimately, what we are all looking for is we're all looking for love.

We're looking for joy, we're looking for peace, we're looking for the ability to handle our kids and have patience, we're looking for all of these other things.

And God is saying, I get that there's a battle inside of you, a battle to follow me or a battle to follow you.

And what I'm telling you is let me guide your life, let me have my way in your life.

And when we look at the the book of Jonah with the with the key of the mercy of God, the great news is that we can see that God's mercy shines when we realize He never gets.

Up on us.

You know what the beautiful things about the book of Jonah is God could have given up, but He didn't.

Imagine if you asked somebody to take your kids to school and instead they drop them off at the airport in Nashville.

How did you even get there?

Okay.

Like that's not on the way to their school.

First of all, we're not friends anymore, okay?

Second of all, don't even don't even look at my kids anymore.

Like, what happened?

Like, I got a thousand questions.

That's exactly what happened to Jonah.

God comes to Jonah and he says, I got a big idea for you.

I want to see, I want you to have the opportunity to see me do something great to this evil city.

And God, and Jonah goes the exact opposite way.

It would have been very noticeable or very a good thing.

Nobody would have thought twice about God if he said, No, you're out.

But instead, God loved Jonah so much that he went and he pursued Jonah.

Can I tell you, no matter how many times we fall, God always pursues us.

So my here's my encouragement to you.

If you don't learn anything else about the book of Jonah, and that is no matter how far you run, God's after you.

God's chasing you.

God wants you to be part of his family.

Look at your neighbor and say, Isn't God good?

You missed up.

You're supposed to say ain't, okay?

You're supposed to say ain't I was testing you a little bit because God is good in that even when we're the problem, here's one, and that is if we have extreme storms.

You ever have somebody who tells you something they're going through?

And you're not trying to be whatever, but you're like, oh, is that all?

And you have to, because they were, you know, they're upset because they were five minutes late.

You're upset because you just lost your job.

And you're just like, hey, well, praise the Lord.

God's good for all of us, and he really is.

But what do you do when we are the mess and when we are going through extreme storms?

Well, that is a perfect time not to give up, but it's a perfect time, according to the book of Jonah, to watch what God can do.

Look at what the Bible says.

It says, but the Lord hurled.

Somebody say the Lord.

The Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart.

But all this time Jonah was asleep down in the hold.

And the crew identified Jonah as the culprit and said, Who are you?

And they they demanded this of him, and he said, I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.

And the sailors were terrified when they heard this.

And they was like, Why did you do this?

Even the sailors are saying, That wasn't smart.

That wasn't a good idea.

What should we do to stop the storm?

And he said, Throw me into the sea.

And they tried for a little while, but eventually they just cried to the Lord and said, Lord, you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons.

That right there just messes me up.

That the Lord, you sent this storm for your own good reasons.

And then the sailors picked up Jonah and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once.

And the sailors were all struck by the Lord's great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him.

You know what's amazing about God?

Is that if we don't see God through the lens of mercy, then we can't see what God is doing.

Because many times God is doing something for our benefit that we don't always recognize.

And the amazing thing is, is that when we understand God's mercy, we stop asking why God as an accusation and start asking, why God?

Out of curiosity.

Because we no longer see God as trying to destroy us, and instead we see that God is for us.

Therefore, if he allows something in our life, if he doesn't stop something in our life, then we know that he's not out to destroy us, but he's trying to get us somewhere.

And so we no longer, God is no longer being held hostage by our next prayer request, but rather we trust him and say, God, I have no idea why you're doing what you're doing, but I trust you.

And so instead of me wondering why would you do this, now I'm going, God, why would you do this?

There must be a miracle somewhere.

Because you love me more than I can imagine.

And if you love me more than I can imagine, then I know you didn't bring me here just to bring me here.

You brought me here to take me through.

And I want to know, God, what are you doing?

And there's so many different reasons why God will allow storms to pass through our lives.

Let me give you three reasons why in this story.

Number one, sometimes storms reveal our hearts.

The Bible said that the sailors were praying, doing everything they can.

They even threw over their cargo.

And if you realize that this was probably a cargo ship, and so they threw off all of their prophets and everything.

They're just trying to live.

And the whole time, Jonah's just catching a few.

It's like, ah, I'm sure it's fine.

He doesn't care.

It shows his heart that he's not in a place where he's trying to help anybody else.

He's not in a place where he's trying to see what God will do.

He's just trying to remove himself from the equation.

He stayed there until somebody else came to get him.

And here's the honest truth, and nobody else wants to tell you is sometimes storms come in our life because we're headed in the wrong direction.

And God has tried with his blessings to get our attention.

And so now he is going to remove his hint of blessing.

So maybe it'll call us to cry out for him.

Because God loves us too much to let us keep going in the wrong direction.

Sometimes storms reveal who's in charge.

Because the Bible said that when they heard that he worshiped the God, not all these false gods, they were terrified.

Sometimes storms come in our life because we forget that God's in control.

And sometimes we have to realize I can't handle this.

As the great philosopher Carrie Underwood said, Jesus, you got to take the wheel.

I don't have this.

Only to realize God was always in charge.

And here's one is sometimes God will not take away storms because he trusts that we won't give up and he is going to show himself to others.

The Bible said that when the sailors saw what God did in Jonah's life and how God calmed the storm, they became followers of Yahweh.

They started to serve the Lord.

And can I tell you, that's one of the reasons why it's so important to be involved in a life group at RLC?

It's because I don't always know which one of these God's trying to do.

Maybe it's the we, if if most of the 80% of our private battles kind of have, you know, us as the author, it might be one of the 20%.

That's got nothing to do with you.

It's just a season you're going through.

But maybe it's because our heart's in the wrong place.

Or maybe it's so God can show himself as strong in our life.

Or maybe it's for God to use us as a living witness of his goodness.

But you got to get around other people you can get honest with and they can help you see from the outside looking in and go, hey, I think this is what maybe is happening in your life.

Because the reality of it is knowing who's greater than the storm makes all the difference.

Knowing that God is greater than this storm.

And so this storm is not here to end us, but God might be using it to steer us in the right direction makes all the difference.

And when we know who's in the storm, it helps us to not go, God, why would you?

And instead go, huh, Heavenly Father, why would you?

I'm curious what you're doing.

It reminds me of a story in the New Testament where there was another storm going on.

I've told you this one so much because God uses it so much in my life.

The Bible said that one day Jesus let said to them, Let's cross over to the other side of the lake.

And as they sailed across, Jesus settled down for a nap.

He's also sleeping, but he's sleeping for a good reason.

But the sun, but soon a fierce storm came down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in real danger.

And the disciples woke him up, shouting, Master, Master, we're going down.

We're gonna drown.

In other words, they were asking him as an accusation, why are you letting this happen?

But when then Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and suddenly the storm stopped and was all calm.

And he asked them, Where was your faith?

And the disciples were terrified and amazed.

And they said, Who is this man?

And they asked each other this because they said, When he gives the command, even the wind and the waves obey him.

So, in other words, he was saying, Wait a minute, why are you accusing me?

Instead, just ask me.

Because I'm already in the boat.

And I guarantee you, everybody on that day learned two things.

Number one, never go on the water without Jesus.

Because he can take care of it.

And number two, I bet they looked at storms a little bit different.

The next time they were in a boat and there was a storm and Jesus was there and the wind started to kick up, say, You mean get Jesus?

You better, you better calm down, we'll go get Jesus.

Because all of a sudden they would have gone from fear to, wait a minute, as long as Jesus is in the boat, as long as I remember who's in control, then I'm not sitting here going, God, why would you do this?

Instead, I'm going, God, what are you up to?

Because I trust you.

And the great thing is, is that the key is that we can see that God's mercy shines when we remember who is in control and how much he loves us?

Here's the question Do you really think that Jesus would come to this earth, live a sinless life, die on the cross, rise again, and then not be faithful?

Do you really think that he would bring you this far, only to bring you this far?

But rather, what if his mercy is greater than we can imagine?

And what if his mercy meets us in every mess, even when we are the mess?

Even when we're guilty.

We did it.

It's one thing for God to be merciful when we had nothing to do with it.

We were just a victim of circumstance.

But what if we were the one who sinned?

What if we were the one who walked away?

Can I tell you that his mercy is greater even then?

And that's I think the key to understanding the book of Jonah is when we see God as the hero of the story and that he is the one who is merciful, then we see this first chapter and it gives us hope to go.

When Jonah went the opposite direction, God didn't give up on him.

When he was the problem, God didn't give up on him.

When he experienced an extreme storm, God used it to get his attention.

And then here's one more to realize that God's mercy shines even when we are ready to surrender.

That God's mercy shines when we are ready to surrender.

I want you to whisper to your neighbor because you're writing down, I say, isn't God good?

You know why God is so good?

It's because he is merciful when me and you were the problem.

He's merciful when we go through the extreme storms of life.

And he is so merciful when we finally surrender ourselves to him.

Look what the Bible said.

The Bible said they didn't know.

Well, you're a prophet.

We now realize who you are and that you know better.

So what are we supposed to do?

You know what he said?

Throw me into the sea.

Jonah said it will become calm again, for I know that this terrible storm is my fault.

In other words, I realize now God's trying to get my attention.

And now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah.

And Jonah was inside the fish for three disgusting days and three horrible nights.

Absolutely.

And you know what's amazing is that Jonah is there and he finally realizes, okay, God, I see you.

I see now that this storm was here for me.

That you love me so much that you interrupted natural order.

You caused a miracle to happen so that you could get my attention.

You got my attention.

And so instead of rowing really hard with them, he said, I'm gonna put my life in the hands of the Lord.

I'm gonna surrender and I'm gonna step out on faith and let God have me.

If God wants me, he can have me.

And he had no idea that Mr.

Wellshark was down there.

He had no idea what was going on.

He just finally got to the place where he knew that if he had gone to Nineveh, he was gonna be putting his life in his own hands because these people don't love him.

And all he realized, he was never supposed to put his life in their hands, he was supposed to put his life in God's hands.

And so now he's been trying to run and hide, putting his life in the sailors' hands, and finally you realize these sailors can't help me either.

Only God can.

So finally, he puts his faith and he surrenders to the Lord.

Now the question is always, so let's go ahead and get this out of the way.

Is it possible for Broski to get eaten by a whale?

The answer is yes, of course it is.

All right.

So there is a thing out there that said that there are some sharks whose uh are some whales whose mouths are like as are throws as big as a fist.

Yes, that's a sperm whale.

No, it's probably not.

But there are whales that are called uh whale sharks, also blue whales and other ones who have mouths that are seven to ten feet wide.

The average person was five'eight back in the day.

He's a snack.

Okay?

He can that can happen.

And just to say that there are there are so many stories.

You can find these if you look it on my blog of people who have been swallowed.

There was a guy uh at uh Cape Cod who was accidentally swallowed by a whale and spat right back out again.

But there was a guy in 1891, William Barclay, at 21 years old, fell overboard while whale hunting, and he and he did because he was whale hunting, shouldn't have done that, and he found he was found 36 hours later inside a whale.

He was broken up pretty bad, but he was alive.

But look at this the gastric juices inside had bleached his skin white, and he was blind for a few days, but he was alive, and he had a whale of a tail.

Yes, absolutely, thank you.

Good night, good night.

That's very good.

Tip your waitresses, tip your waitresses.

It's fine, it's fine.

All right, yes.

I didn't tell, I didn't tell the whole sermon for that one joke, but it did work.

It did work.

But the reality of it was I mean, think about it, this is not a good time, this is not a good time, but the reality of it is it doesn't really matter because it's a miracle.

It's a miracle.

Let me this this is the whole thing.

The whole thing is to get right here.

If God can create the universe, if Jesus can rise from the dead, if Nemo can swallow Jonah, his mercy can create a miracle for you too.

What can God not do if you will finally surrender to him?

The question is not if God can do a miracle, the question is are you ready to surrender?

Are you ready to surrender?

If you're ready to surrender, there's no telling what God can do if you're ready to surrender.

Now, I need to be honest with you.

When you surrender to God, that doesn't always mean you're gonna get the job.

Doesn't mean you're always gonna get the relationship that you wanted at the time.

It doesn't mean that you're gonna get the get the new car.

God, God will steer you in the right direction.

And I would say that Jonah would say, I would have rather taken a plane, I would have rather taken a life raft, I would have loved to just been translated.

Like I go to Star Trek and just put me there.

No, no, he had to get swallowed by a fish and gastric juices marinating him.

We're gonna talk about that next week, okay?

For three days, that's a bad day, right?

But God was faithful and God kept him through that miracle.

And here's the thing it's not about whether or not God can do a miracle, it's about are you ready to surrender?

And if you surrender, there's no telling what God can do.

We're gonna see that this week.

If you've been reading the Bible with us, we've been reading through the Bible one chapter at a time, and we're in the book of Genesis.

And if you want to join us, you can text RLC Bible to 94,000.

And there's this amazing story that happens this week, and it's about a guy named Jacob, and he has had this feud with his brother Esau for years.

And he's ran away from home and he's started a new life, Jacob did, and he ended up uh getting married, having just a load of kids and all this stuff, and he's getting ready to head back to move back to his hometown where Esau is.

And because there had been this feud, he's afraid that Esau is gonna kill him.

And so he's getting ready to head home to his hometown, and he finds out that Esau is coming with hundreds of men.

That sounds like a small army.

And so he's terrified, and he's so terrified that it's over for him and that there's no way out of this, and it's the worst storm of his life that he actually divides his family in two, thinking that if Esau attacks one part of his family, his other part of his family will live.

That's a really bad day.

And so he sends them on ahead and he is there at night, the night before he is going to encounter Esau all by himself.

Probably the worst night of his life, wondering which one of my family will live.

It's a horrible moment.

And while he is there that night, God visits him in a miracle.

The Bible uh tells us about this, and theologians call it a Christophany, probably a time when Jesus showed up in the Old Testament and he and he meets Jacob in the middle of the night to try to comfort him.

But Jacob doesn't know it's God, and so he starts wrestling with God.

And he's he's wrestling with God and he's wrestling with God.

I don't know about you, but but that's so much me.

So many times I'm in the darkest season of my life, instead of accepting God, I wrestle with God over and over again, and finally he starts wrestling with God.

And then there's a moment when he starts to go, wait a minute, this is God.

So instead of wrestling with God, he's holding on to God.

He said, No, no, no, I gotta have you.

I gotta have you, and finally it's over with.

And he says, God, I'm not gonna let you go until you bless me.

And God blesses him.

And he says this afterward, he says he named that place Penil, which means the face of God.

For he said, I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.

And he said, God met me in my darkest moment.

And at first I fought against God, but when I realized he was the only hope I had, I started fighting to hold on to God.

And when I surrendered myself over to God, he changed my life forever.

And can I tell you for many of us, if you're in a dark season of your life, I guarantee you, God's trying to find you, he's trying to come to you wherever you are.

But so many times we fight against God.

But can I encourage you to turn that around and start fighting to hold on to God because his mercy meets us in every one of our messes, and the promise that he has for us is that no matter what dark difficulty you're going through, no matter what belly of a monster you find yourself in, you can still dare to hope when you remember this the faithful love of the Lord never ends, his mercies never cease.

I tell you, this was also written during a time of great tragedy when the nation of Israel had fallen, they didn't trust the Lord over and over.

They God would send prophets to say, You gotta turn around, you gotta turn around, and they wouldn't do it.

And then God sent other prophets to say, if you don't turn around, I'm gonna send a storm.

He called the you know the the nation of Babylon, and then you gotta turn around, you gotta turn around, and then they wouldn't turn around, and then finally, God, out of his mercy to get them to turn around, he allowed them to be overthrown, and then the the prophet Jeremiah is there in the ruins, looking at his his wonderful city of Jerusalem that has been destroyed, and all he sees is devastation, and it's in this moment that he says, I still dare to have hope when I remember that the faithful love of the Lord never ends, his mercy, his ability to meet me even in this mess, never ceases.

Can I tell you?

I I don't know where you may be in your life today, but what I do know is God loves you more than you can imagine.

God is for you more than you can imagine.

It doesn't matter if you're the problem.

Just be honest, if you if you would just say, Yes, I I am the common denominator in all my battles, guess what?

God still loves you.

If you're going through the worst storm of your life, and if you did walk away from the Lord, He still wants to meet you.

And if you're finally ready to surrender, God has a miracle for you.

For some of us in here, that miracle is called salvation.

It's the most amazing miracle you could ever experience.

Salvation is when you bow and you bend your knee to Jesus and you say, Jesus, I want you to take my life, wash away all my sin.

I can't save myself, I can't fix myself.

All I can do is humbly surrender to you.

And you know what he does?

He comes in and he washes away all of our sin.

He washes away our past, he gives us a home in heaven and he begins to cleanse us from everything we're going through.

Our lives are never the same.

The Bible says the old things pass away, all things become new.

If you have the courage, like Jonah, to surrender for salvation, in just a moment, the band's gonna lead us into another song of worship, a time to respond to what maybe the Lord is doing in your heart.

And if that's you, on the back of your connect card is the plan of salvation.

And in just a moment, when we stand to worship, your next best act of worship is to take this card and to meet us at the prayer table and say, I want to know Jesus, I want to surrender my life to Jesus.

And can I tell you it's one thing to know about the love of God, and it's another to experience Him for yourself.

It's not about whether or not God will do a miracle, it's about whether or not you're ready to surrender.

Maybe you're in here and you know Jesus.

Jonah knew God, but through time and difficulty and different things, he'd walked away from God.

He still knew who he was serving, but he was going through a difficult time.

Is that you?

Would you say you've got some of those battles going on?

And hey, if I'm honest, some of them are my fault.

It's not whether or not God can do a miracle, it's about whether or not you're ready to surrender.

So maybe as we're worshiping the Lord, maybe your next best act of worship is to maybe come down here in the altar and just quietly by yourself, God say, I surrender myself over to you all over again.

Do whatever you got to do, but get me back on the right road.

I want that big idea that you have for me.

I still want that.

If you'll take me, I'll give myself to you.

And the thing is, is he already already wants you?

He died on the cross and rose again.

What else do you think he won't do to come and find you?

Maybe it's just gotta say, God, I surrender to you all.

over again.

But what is it you need to do to surrender yourself over to him because God is a God of mercy and he meets us in every one of our messages.

Let's pray together right now.

God, thank you so much for today.