Cry of the Lost - Part 2

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.

Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I

give you. Jonah obeyed the word of the

Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large

city. It took three days to go through

it. Jonah began by going a day's

journey into the city, proclaiming 40 more days and

Nineveh will be overthrown. The Ninevehites believed God.

A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to

the least, put on sackcloth. When Jonah's warning reached the

king of Nineveh, he rose from his stone, took off his royal

robes, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat down in the

dust. This is the proclamation he

issued in Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles.

Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks taste anything.

Do not let them eat or drink, but let people and animals be

covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on

God. Let them give up their evil ways

and their violence. Who knows?

God may yet relent and with compassion turn from His first

fierce anger so that we will not perish.

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil

ways, He relented and did not bring on them the destruction He

had threatened. Hello, 3 CR nice to see you

again. Just popped down there.

My name is Mitch. If I hadn't haven't had the

privilege of meeting you. It's more beautiful Aftar and we

have the pleasure and privilege of being on staff here at 3 CR

and leading the Super city, the Kidsmen team.

And just because we're involved in Kidsmen, I promise you now

we're not going to make you recite any memory verses, but

you can collect join a word search on the way out.

So this is TA I want to introduce.

Yourself. Hi, I was going to say we

definitely can collect a journal with search on the way out if

you'd like to, but. We're going to dive in.

Thank you, Rowan. I think that is very cool and

cinematic and and all those Moody things.

But now you got to deal with me anyway.

So let's dive into it. I think as we've kind of been

working through this Jonah series and, and I think it's an

incredible honour, Stephen and the eldership.

Thank you very much for the, for the privilege of, of preaching.

We don't take this lightly, but this Jonah series has been a

deeply convicting one as we've unpacked scripture and done work

around some pretty, pretty heavy topics.

I think in preparation for this week.

It was no different for, for, for myself and for TA as we, as

we worked our way through this chapter of Jonah three.

So tonight we want to unpack and and just kind of peel back the

layers of God's relentless pursuit for our hearts.

So we want to ask the big question.

Will you trust God with the cries of your heart?

And by cry, I mean the things that drive you.

It's the deep motivators that are the influence of your

decision making. Someone's phoning me.

So someone, someone clever being being fun.

Anyway, OK, so the deep cries and the deep motivators that

influence your decisions. So as we continue Jonah, we want

to unpack this this section of Jonah three and actually see God

is just after our hearts. So chapter 3 is a story of two

hearts. You've got Jonah and the

Ninevites Tonight we want to paint a picture of of the heart

of Jonah and the heart of heart of the Ninevites.

So you've got this hard resistant heart of Jonah who

doesn't want to do what God has called them.

He knows God, but he doesn't want to do what God has called

them to do. And then you've got this lost,

sinful, evil heart of the Ninevites that don't know God,

but they're about to. So throughout this message,

hopefully the take away and just I want you to ask yourself the

question, where is your heart sitting?

So looking at Jonah three, we can split it into two parts.

You've got Jonah who finally obeyed the word of the Lord and

took the word of the Lord to the Ninevites.

And then secondly, you've got the response of the Ninevites.

The word of the Lord came a second time, still the same

word, but the word didn't change.

And then secondly, Nineveh responded and they believed both

Jonah and the Ninevites needed a transformation to obey God.

Something that struck me while we were preparing is this this

kind of, what's the word contrast of these two of these

two hearts. Jonah would have known the word

being a Jew and being a prophet, he would have studied his whole

life and he would have studied the word.

So he would have understood the theory of the word.

So This is why later he says, but God, isn't this what I said

when I was still at home when I tried to forestall by fleeing to

Tarsus? I knew you were gracious and

compassionate God, and you were slow to anger, abounding in

love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

He knew God would save Nineveh because he knew about God's

character, because he had studied about it, but he didn't

understand God's heart. The second response is the

people of Nineveh, they heard the word of God and they

understood, but they and then they understood the heart of

God. So there was no fuss.

As the word penetrated the city, it penetrated their hearts and

there was a transformation that started to take place.

So what can we take from this? Jonah knew the word and he

understood the theory. The Ninevehs heard the Word and

they caught something of the heart.

There's a practical outworking of God's mercy towards us when

we encounter His love. When we are surrounded by His

grace. We can't keep living the way

that we have been. Something has to change.

Our lives have been flipped on its head and our hearts have

been transformed. I said last week as Stephen was

preaching. This series has been something

incredibly deep and for me it's been something incredibly tender

and like my I sit here and my heart is wrecked because I can't

keep living the way I have been. Something has to change.

The word commands a response. It's not just like will you

change, it's actually you need to change.

We can sit in church, we can read our Bibles, we can check

all the boxes, but if we do not catch something of what God is

saying and doing, we're just going to end up like Jonah.

It's just going to be theory. So this chapter, this chapter is

an invitation to an invite to God, into the cry of your heart

to let God search you because He knows you and his heart is for

you. He is a God that is deeply moved

by both Jonah and Nineveh. The beautiful thing is that the

change of Nineveh doesn't actually come from the king

first. It comes from the people.

So if we believe that our families are going to change, if

we are trusting God for change to take place in our families,

in our schools, in our businesses, and into even

greater into our city and into our nation, it's not going to

come from the DA coming into power.

It's going to come from you and I are making decisions to live,

to transform life as God enters into our hearts and changes us

from within. We have got to live a life in

the knowledge of the fullness of God's mercy and grace.

But once the word reaches the king, there's this massive

public decree. I love it.

It's kind of like, you know, in COVID when we were waiting for

Uncle Cyril to like jump on and be like my fellow S Africans.

It's like he's Uncle Cyril's jumping on.

He's saying, my fellow S Africans, everyone in your

household, this is for you and your household, even your dog.

Get off your couches, sit in the ground, humble your souls and

cry out to God for forgiveness. Can you imagine how different

Pretoria would look if actually we got off our got off our high

horses, got off get got rid of our pride and we actually got

God? I need you to change my life.

I can't keep living like this. It's radical.

And the best part is they weren't even sure it would work.

It's my favorite line of the whole of Jonah says this.

Who knows, God may yet relent with compassion.

I love this picture of God here of the king hearing about this

God and trying to catching something of the heart and

racing with this thing and he'd be like, you know what people

like the people of Nineveh. Will you actually will you trust

me? Will you get off your get off

your your chairs and actually will we just crowd to God and

ask for forgiveness? He might just not destroy us.

He might just not do what he promised to do.

He might just hear the crowd of our hearts.

The Oxford Dictionary describes trust as confidence and belief

or sureness. It is the willingness to open

oneself up to risk and engaging in a relationship.

It's like this beautiful picture of like the king sitting there

and being like, you know what, God, I think I've caught

something of you. Here's my heart.

But please don't destroy it like you've promised you for

destruction. You've promised destroying.

But here's my heart. If I think I understand you,

here's my heart and it's this beautiful picture of the Father

coming around and surrounding it and protecting it and

transforming it and changing it. So we've seen this this chapter

unpack the two hearts, one that understands the word and one

that understands the word giver. So we can have a heart of Jonah.

At the core, it just wanted revenge and justice because of

what the Ninevites had done to the Israelites.

He was hesitant to obey God kind of Eugene preached so well this

morning. Jonah kind of going with a very

short pretty lame sermon kind of preaching through gritted teeth.

Or we can have the heart of the Ninevites, which just one

complete domination and power where Stephen so beautifully

painted the the picture last week that Nineveh at where it is

from a geographical point of view is the headquarters of

ISIS. We all want something the only

solution powerful enough to capture the battle of both

hearts, both of the victim and the perpetrator is Jesus.

The solution to these cries is to live in the knowledge of our

sonship. You've heard my dad say this

1000 times and it's not something new to three CR, but

it's something I still believe is incredibly true.

At the core of every person there are three needs.

It's the greatest needs of any man.

Identity, affection and affirmation.

We all want to be to belong, We all want to be someone.

We all want to be loved, and we all want to feel like we're

doing well. The solution is Jesus.

When the Father looks at us, he sees the finished work of the

cross. He looks at you and he sees what

his Son did for you. He looks at you and he says,

This is my Son, whom I love with you.

I'm well pleased. 3 CR. The word over us is unchanging,

and if we can get this right, I truly, truly, truly believe that

we can change the city of Pretoria and we can change our

nation. You see, for Jonah, his identity

was fine as long as he was the popular prophet.

As soon as God asked him to do something that challenged that,

there was a problem for Nineveh, their identity was fine.

And being the political and military power of the time,

Jonah was fine when he would carry out a word that would lead

to affection from his people. And Nineveh had this response of

you can try come at us, we'll just knock you down.

You see the thing that sits at the centre of everything is

understanding that you're a son of of the most high God.

That changes everything. Jonah got on the boat to

Tarshish not because he didn't believe in God.

He didn't believe God could protect him from the Ninevites.

The Ninevites ruled with fear because their whole mindset was

actually that they were the dominant.

They were the domineering power. When you're a son of God, you're

not operating out of a pier of lack or a pier of a place of

self preservation. You're operating out of a place

where you know who your father is.

It's kind of that thing like on the on the playground as a kid,

like, oh, you don't know who my dad is.

Three CR We have to believe this word of the Lord.

To us, we are God's sons, we are loved and with us He is well

pleased. But how do we do this?

This is where I get to call him a beautiful wife.

I think as we were preparing she she had this beautiful and bold

but tender response and understanding to the Scripture.

So I'd love for her to unpack it.

Is that cool? Sweet.

Thanks love. I think we were just so struck

by the response of none of them. And I think that there's this

moment where you can see the response of a Pagan king, that

there's this profound picture that I think there's keys for us

three CR. He was possibly the most

important and influential man on the face of the planets at that

time. And as Rowan read, he got off

his throne, he took off his royal robes and he sat in the

dust. It's wild, like it's radical.

And as Michi is so beautifully shown and unpacked, I think at

the core of all of our desires, whether it's whether it's Jonah

who wants justice, whether it's the Ninevites that want control,

whether it's your kid who wants to make the soccer team.

We all want something. But actually at the centre of

all of that, we just asking for our dad to say you're my kid, I

dig you, I'm so pleased with you, I so love you.

And what that king did when he got off his throne was he

actually laid aside all his earthly authority, his earthly

position, his earthly identity. And he let the father, that's

the King of all kings say, you're my kid.

You're the son of that king. When he took off his earthly,

when he took off his kingly robes, that was his influence,

That was his adoration. When you wear a kingly robe that

comes with stuff, people treat you differently.

And he actually took it off because he let the King of all

kings say, my boy, I love you. He took it off so he could hear

he could hear the father say that over him.

This Pagan king who had not had the privilege of generations of

hearing about God's character on a maybe he took off his throne

and and you and you can almost hear his heart like what are you

going to say? I'm risking.

Yeah, here's my heart. What are you going to say?

What is the sound going to be? It's three CR You are a son, you

are a daughter, you are loved and you and and the father is so

well pleased with you. The next thing the king did was

he got off and he sat in the dust.

I don't know about you, but it's not a good look.

Like if my friend did that, it's not like there's no Instagram

post for that. It's like, OK, we got to have a

bit of an intervention. Like you're doing fine, sweetie.

Like it's dramatic. It's not a good look.

Nobody's going to adore you when you're sitting in the dust.

It's not a powerful look, but it was in the dust that the King of

Kings, kings could save him and raise him up three CR.

There's some things in our hands but God is saying will you trust

me so I can give you something better?

In chapter 2 it says those who cling to worthless idols forfeit

the grace that could be theirs because salvation comes from the

Lord. SO3 CR I want to ask us what are

the things in our hands that maybe we need to speak to a

Tinder father about because he's got something so much better, so

much better for us. A couple of weeks ago, it was

Easter months ago now, and we handed out hundreds if not

thousands of marshmallow Easter eggs.

And there were kids like they were in their shirts, they were

in their hands, there was plenty.

And there's almost this picture of you've got marshmallow Easter

eggs in both of your hands, but your dad wants to give you a

lint Bunny and sometimes you actually have to drop the

marshmallow egg. We laugh at kids, but we do the

same thing. What seats are you sitting on?

Three CR what, what, what coat is on your shoulders?

Because God, I promise you, God has got something so much better

for you. He wants to give you that thing

and freedom. He wants to give you that thing

and an, an identity that won't be rocked if you if you lose the

battle because you know what? He won the whole war for you.

So how does this work? We know that we've all got stuff

and we know that we all have desires.

We know that the answer is Jesus.

But how does it work? And when we were going through

Jonah to it, it just felt like it didn't match.

Like how, how, how do we have these desires, these this pride

of Jonah and then this radical revival that like one of the

most significant revivals recorded of all time?

How did this happen? And I feel like the secret and

the and the sneaky little verse for us tonight is actually in

verse five it says, and the people believed in God.

That's a thing. The people believed in God.

It feels, it feels too easy. It feels like it can't be that

simple. It feels like they must be more.

And I think if we've listened to Galatians over the last couple

of weeks, it is as simple and as complicated as that because the

blood of Jesus is the only thing strong enough to actually battle

the desires of a domineering Ninevite.

And a raging Jonah, Jesus has been has been the answer from

Nineveh to to Pretoria. It's isn't Ezekiel 36.

It says, it says it says this. Let me actually read this.

It says this. It says, I will give you a new

heart, I'll put a new spirit in you, I will take out your heart

of stone, and I will give you a heart of flesh.

See, this is what I think happened, and I think this is

the difference between Jonah and the Ninevites.

Jonah understood something in his mind, but the Ninevites let

it drop into their hearts. What they actually did was they

said God, there is some stones, there is some rocks, there is

some salt, there are some weeds. As Steven so beautifully painted

the picture of Jesus. Will you help me?

Because you see, if it's three days in the belly of a fish or

three days in the tomb, the answer has always been Jesus.

He is the only blood powerful enough.

From from Nineveh to Ezekiel to Pretoria, the answer has always

been Jesus. From the Old Testament to the

New Testament, it's as simple and as complicated as Jesus.

In closing, I'd love to share a story with you if I can.

There there was a study a few years ago and they they wanted

to understand why why abandoned babies don't cry.

They, they strangely behaved and when they looked into why they

made the heartbreaking discovery was that they do cry, but

eventually they realise no one's coming so they stop crying.

And this is not, this is not just a study.

This is the story of a dear, dear friend of ours.

He's yet a few days old. He was abandoned and thrown into

a dustbin and he was found and he was taken to a Timolito baby

home in Glenridge and he was saved and adopted by some dear

friends of ours, the Sanjico family.

But when he came from that home, he had a name, and the name was

Tolani, which means the quiet one.

It also means to be quiet can be an instruction.

And I believe there's some of us yesterday that it actually might

be Tolani. You felt like no one's heard you

anymore, felt like no one's listened.

But that was not the end of of his story.

Because you see, Auntie Dahlia and Uncle Elliot gave him her

new name. His name was Elijah.

And Elijah means Yahweh is my God the great.

I am the sufficient one that the one that is everything that I

need. He is my God.

And if you ever had the privilege of meeting Elijah, he

was full of life. He was a drummer, back flipper,

kind, beautiful man because that is what Jesus does.

Three sia. He takes us up from Nineveh, He

takes us up from Israel, He takes us up from the belly of a

whale, He takes us up from a dustbin and he puts our feet on

solid ground and he speaks a bitter word over us.

The word compassion in Jonah that describes God's character

in Hebrew is also used to describe the tender affection of

a mother towards a a baby's cry. It means a tentative.

It's also used to describe the word womb.

Sometimes when God says he is compassionate to us, he's saying

he surrounds us lack salvation. He's saying he promises to hear

you The Sanjika family where a picture was a picture of Jesus

blood in the largest laugh. They surrounded him, they heard

his cries, they saved him. They spoke a better word over

him and Sonat there's an invitation whether you've known

God for for generations and like like Jonah, you have a

generational history with God or if you the Ninevites and you

actually are going out on a big risk.

You're hoping that God that God will be there.

You're hoping that that he might hear whether your story is that

you're the quiet one that hasn't actually cried out for a while

because you've handled it yourself, because you've been

self-sufficient. The invitations and answers.

Lord Jesus though Jesus, thank you that you hear my cry.

Would you give me a new heart? Because we are his sons and

daughters. We are so loved and God is so

pleased with us.