Rescue: It's Me. Hi, I'm the Problem. It's Me with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

We are in week two of our rescue series where we're going to the Old Testament book of Jonah.

Last week we got all kinds of background and context on who Jonah actually was.

If you missed that, you can get caught up at metachurch.tv at any time.

I think that will really be helpful as we navigate the rest of this series.

This is a gospel series, which means every single week we are specifically addressing the good news of Jesus and what he offers every single one of us.

And for those who are already believers in Jesus, there is so much that we can draw out of Jonah's story because the good news isn't just the end goal to believe in Jesus.

That's the beginning of a new life where we grow and we continue to see God do things in our life.

We believe our lives were created on purpose.

We're on earth for a reason, and with purpose that we have something to offer the world, that God wants to use us as a part of his plan of redemption.

Last week we looked at the first three verses.

Jonah chapter one, verse one says, The word of the Lord came to Jonah.

Get up, go to the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it, because their evil has come up before me.

And Jonah got up to flee from the Lord's presence, to flee to Tarshish.

He went down to Joppa, he found a ship going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down into it to go away from the Lord's presence.

And this sets us up for today.

Jonah, the great prophet of the Lord, who is running from God, running from his calling.

Jonah, who was religious.

And remember, religion says, God, you owe me something.

And when God's plan would not come into line with Jonah's plan, the religious prophet became the rebellious prophet.

He was running as far and as fast as he could to Tarshish, literally the other side of the world.

And if you know the story of Jonah, you know that what comes next is he gets into the ship and a great storm comes.

But this isn't any normal weather event.

This is a significant storm that is self-made.

That is to say that Jonah's disobedience, his running from God, was the direct cause of the storm that threatened to sink the ship that he was on.

I was really inspired by a song lately, a deeply philosophical song.

It was a Taylor Swift song.

And as I heard it, I thought, that's week two.

That's my whole sermon.

So my sermon title today is It's Me.

Hi.

I'm the Problem.

It's me.

From the great philosopher, T.

Swift.

Jonah has got himself into a mess.

And the question is, what do we do when we've made a mess of our life?

How do we navigate our self-made storms?

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you, and we're here because of your great love for us.

I thank you for Metachurch, for a gathering of people from all different walks of life, all different parts of their faith journey.

I pray, Holy Spirit, that we would humble ourselves to what you're wanting to do in our life today, how you're wanting to speak to us, challenge us, show us something new.

We love you.

We pray all these things in your name, Jesus.

And if you want to learn more about self-made storms, say amen.

Amen.

Um, we've already mentioned a couple times in service we're gonna do something a little bit different today.

We don't want to just talk about the storms in your life.

We want to feel the storms, and so let's do that.

Let's step into the storm together.

In Jonah 1:4, it says, But the Lord threw a great wind onto the sea, and such a great storm arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break apart, and the sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his own God, and they threw the ship's cargo into the sea to lighten the load.

Jonah 1:4

And meanwhile, Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and fallen into a deep sleep.

So the captain approached and he said, What are you doing sleeping?

Get up, call out to your God, see if your God will consider us, and maybe we won't perish.

It's hard for any of us to even imagine what it would have actually been like on the ship.

This is the first century, this is a wooden ship.

The eye of a hurricane.

They're actually, in the text, not even concerned with it capsizing.

The wind is so strong that they're afraid that the ship will break in half.

Today we're talking about self-made storms.

You know, there are times where you will suffer in life and you will struggle in life, and it's not a result of your actions.

It's just a part of living in a broken world, a world full of sin.

Jesus said, in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, he said, I have overcome the world.

Today we're talking about self-made storms.

The ones that are a direct consequence of the actions you've taken, the decisions that you've made, your choices, your habits, your patterns, your relationships.

I wonder when the last time you found yourself in a real storm in life.

These self-made storms, their elements are not wind and rain, thunder and lightning.

They're made out of things like anger and frustration and depression.

They're made out of hopelessness, relational turmoil, sorrow, anxiety, addiction.

Today we are talking about consequence.

And what's interesting is when we find ourselves in our self-made storms, there's this thing about being human where we don't really know how to navigate out.

And so usually we double down and we triple down on the very things that got us there in the first place.

If you think about the relational storms you've been through in life, when at the core of it, it actually is your selfishness.

It's your habits, it's the way you talk to them, it's the way that you won't compromise.

And yet, when you're in the midst of the storm, every inclination is just to go deeper and deeper into the eye of the hurricane as you hold your ground and entrench your views and try desperately to convince them it's actually their fault.

When our addictions get the best of us, it leaves us in a spiral where we end up feeling guilty and our guilt to satiate it.

We go right back into the addictions, right back into the guilt, deeper into the addictions, deeper into the guilt.

Our patterns in life, our career choices, where we've been selfish, where we've been angry, misleading.

The reason that we ultimately end up in the storm is what we saw last week in Jonah's story.

Jonah had all kinds of reasons, political reasons, social reasons, religious reasons.

At the bottom of it all, Jonah ran from God because Jonah did not trust God.

He didn't trust that God's plans for him were good plans.

Things that God had for him.

He felt like God was against him.

Every time that we cannot trust God, any area of your life you feel like you can't trust God with, any relationship you feel like you can't trust God with, ultimately when we can't trust God, we will run from God.

And when you run from God, you will run into a self-made storm.

We often run from God with the great promises that a broken culture makes us, a world full of sin, a promise of fun, of fulfilling your desires, of attention, of success, of status.

And sometimes you can even achieve that, if but for just a moment.

Eventually, when you don't trust God and you run from God, you run into the midst of the storm.

And what do we do when we find ourselves in the storm?

The sailors have gone down and they woke Jonah up from his sleep, and they're trying to figure out what in the world is happening here.

Like no one saw this storm coming.

They wouldn't have sailed that day if they thought this was going to be on their route.

They're trying to figure it out.

And this is a bad moment for Jonah because he knows.

He knows he is the actual problem.

He knew better than to run from God.

He knew it when he got to Joppa.

He knew it when he got on the boat, he knew it when he paid his fare, he knew he was running from God, trying to flee from the Lord's presence.

He knew it.

He knew he was the cause of the storm.

And this is what happens when we're in the midst of our storm, when we're in the midst of our addiction, is we end up having to hide.

We put a paper facade over what we're actually dealing with.

We live in a world now where for most of human history there were like 10 or 15 people who knew you.

And if your life was upside down, those people knew it.

You could not hide it.

Now we live online.

You can be in the greatest storm of your life, and as long as you put on the right smile and get your family in front of the right vacation picture and put the right filter on it, you can be living in hell and put out to the world that everything is just as good as it could possibly be.

What happens when we hide?

What happens when our addictions get the best of it?

What happens when we know that we are living in ways that not only don't please God, but wouldn't please the people we care about the most?

We're in a position where we know, but we have to keep it from them.

And eventually the storms show themselves.

And the people you love the most are made to look the fool.

Look at what happens to Jonah in verse 7.

Come on, the sailors said to each other, let's cast lots, and then we'll know who is to blame for this trouble we're in.

And so they cast lots, and the lot singled out Jonah, and they said to him, Tell us, who is to blame for this trouble we're in?

What is your business?

Where are you from?

Where is your country?

And what people are you from?

And Jonah answered, I'm a Hebrew.

I worship the Lord.

The God of the heavens, the God who made the sea and the dry land.

This was the worst answer they could have imagined.

You see, these were pagan sailors.

They worshiped little trinkets made of wood or stone.

Maybe they worshiped one element of nature like the sun or the stars or the trees.

They just found out that this Hebrew stowaway is a prophet of the one God of all creation.

It says in verse 10 that the men were seized by a great fear.

And they asked Jonah, What have you done?

Take my photo of all of it, just on safe for you.

Oh well, look what you've done, you've made a full one.

And oh well, it seems like such final till you lose what you had.

For you I can hardly hear you say what should I do well you choose.

Oh no, look what you've done you made a fool every seems like such fun to you.

What do we do when we can't escape the storm?

I would argue that the only thing worse than going through a storm in your life that like everyone's aware of is going through a storm in your life that you've hidden and are keeping all to yourself.

Being materially wealthy, obviously wealthy, but spiritually bankrupt.

Being digitally influential and having no real people in your life that you feel like you can actually depend on.

Looking in sexual encounter after sexual encounter to try and build your value and worth, only to start slowly realizing that every one night stand actually takes some of your value, worth, and dignity and never gives it back to you.

What do we do when we find ourselves in the storm that we made for ourselves?

A lot of people understandably have a difficult time with a God who punishes them in such dramatic ways.

Kind of over the top, you know?

Sending a huge storm, almost sinking an entire ship just to get Jonah's attention.

We don't like that anymore.

It's coupled with the fact that we live in a society where we have a lot of fatherless homes, and a lot of people who actually may wish that even though they had a dad in their home, maybe they wouldn't have.

They were raised by abusive fathers or neglectful fathers.

But as a whole, kind of our social imagination doesn't have a good view of fathers.

And yet God is our heavenly father.

And if you're raising kids, you know this.

And if you had good parents, you know this.

And one of the things you must do as a parent is allow your children the natural consequence of their actions.

The worst thing you can do for your children is to bail them out and rescue them and keep them from experiencing the results of the courses of action that they take.

It's how we learn, it's how we grow.

It's how we raise our children to understand the way that life is designed to be lived.

Sometimes God comes right into his creation.

He's God after all.

He made it all, he can do what he wants.

That's what he did in the case of Jonah, and we see that throughout scripture.

But when you read scripture, what you begin to discover is the normative way the world works is not God inserting himself and forcing a storm on the ocean.

The way God typically works in our lives is by creating a world of cause and effect, creating a world of action and consequence.

Think about this.

Whether you're a Christian or a non believer, as Christians, we do believe that God created everything.

And because he is the creator of everything, he's the designer of everything.

And God has gone to accept.

Extensive links to reveal the design for our lives to us.

He revealed it by sending his Holy Spirit.

He revealed it in our scriptures that have been protected and preserved through the millennia.

He revealed it most of all in Jesus Christ, God incarnate, walking the earth.

The Gospel of John says that if you've seen Jesus, you've seen the Father because Jesus revealed the Father.

You want to know how to live according to the Father's design.

Live like Jesus.

Have the blueprint?

Have the design manual.

We know how we're supposed to live.

We know that we're supposed to love God and put nothing else above him.

We know that the way we show our love to God is by loving the people around us.

We know we're supposed to love selflessly and put others before ourselves.

We know we're supposed to even love our enemies.

We know that we are supposed to live chaste lives, that we're supposed to live supposed to abstain for immorality and sexual impurity.

We know these things.

We know we're supposed to be generous and not hoarders of our wealth.

We know the design.

It's been given to us and revealed from heaven.

But often what God asks us to do doesn't seem all that fun in the moment.

Maybe it seems like struggle.

Maybe it seems like suffering.

Maybe it seems like denying some of your earthly desires.

And when we don't trust God, we run from God.

And when we run from God, we run right into self-made storms.

And here's what you have to realize about a God who allows you to experience consequence, even severe consequence.

We realize out of the story of Jonah that God did not send the storm to punish Jonah.

God sent the storm to bring Jonah back home.

What consequence is in your life is God desperately trying to get his child's attention, desperately trying to call you back to himself.

God's consequence is always redemptive in nature.

God is the designer.

He knows what a life of purpose and significance and fulfillment would do to you and how he could use you in this world and when you go astray from him.

And it's so interesting by allowing Jonah to experience this consequence, what it did in Jonah's life.

In verse 11, they said to Jonah, What should we do to you so that the sea will calm down for us?

For the sea was getting worse and worse.

And Jonah answered, Pick me up and throw me into the sea so that it will calm down for you.

For I know I'm to blame for this great storm.

Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they couldn't because the sea was raging against them more and more, and so they called out to the Lord.

These pagan sailors who did not believe in Yahweh are now crying out to the Lord of the heavens and the earth, Lord, don't let us perish because of this man's life, and don't charge us with this innocent blood, for you, Lord, have done just as you pleased.

And they picked Jonah up and they threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped.

And everything went still.

And the reality of this moment gets lost on people.

The reality that Jonah, a prophet of God his whole life, ran from God because he did not trust God.

And now Jonah has allowed himself to be thrown overboard because in the midst of the storm, he was reminded that he could, in fact, trust the Lord.

It's so wild what happens next.

In verse 16, the men were seized by great fear of the Lord.

And they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and they made vows to him.

It's ironic, really.

The reason that Jonah ran and got on the ship in the first place is he did not want to go to a pagan nation and preach to them.

He didn't believe they deserved to hear the word of the Lord.

And we find out in Jonah's story, his greatest fear is that if he went to Nineveh and he preached the word of the Lord, that they might repent and believe in the Lord.

It's ironic that Jonah ran because he didn't want to just simply preach to a pagan nation and instead he ends up sacrificing his life for a crew full of pagan sailors.

God will have his way.

And he offers us cooperation in his program.

It should be confounding to you at some level that Jonah, when asked directly by the word of the Lord to do something, to go somewhere, to preach against Nineveh, he refused.

He didn't trust God enough to do it.

And yet, he trusted God enough to jump in and give his life in the sea.

At minimum, he trusted that if he jumped overboard, that the seas would calm and the storm would abate.

And maybe, just maybe, he even trusted that if he were willing to sacrifice himself, that God might come and rescue him.

And you know this is the wildest part of Jonah's story.

We finally got to it.

In verse 17, the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah.

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

And his life was spared.

In our culture today, we view consequence as very negative.

We view discipline as very negative, although at some level we do realize that to live the life we were created to live, it requires us to be disciplined people.

And disciplined people understand what discipline does in their life.

It course corrects, it gets your attention.

It draws you back to the design that God placed on your life.

I don't think it's any coincidence that when the sun was shining and he was safe in Israel, that Jonah struggled to trust God.

He thought God owed him something.

We can fall into that same rut.

He thought his plan was better than God's.

It was in the storm.

It was in the consequence.

It was in the reaction to his disobedience.

It was in the storm that he learned to trust God again.

And I think that Jonah saw the storm correctly.

And maybe today, if you could see the storms that you've made in your life correctly, you could have a chance of coming back to God as well.

You know what Jonah saw in the storm?

Jonah saw that he was running from God, but God was also running after him.

Maybe the storms in your life, perhaps the consequence from how you have gone astray from God's plan, perhaps that is the best indicator.

Not that God is desperate to punish you.

It's the best indicator that you can in fact trust in God.

And ultimately, we are separated from God because we decided to go against his plan.

Sin, I'm sure a word you've heard a lot, sin is missing the mark on God's design and desire for our life.

All of us have gone astray.

All of us have turned our backs on God.

And because of our sin, we separated ourselves from our God.

We are without our Heavenly Father if we don't find a remedy to our sin.

And that remedy came in the form of Jesus.

And Jesus reversed the entire narrative of religion.

Religion says you are separated from your deity, and so you better work harder and live cleaner and think better and give more.

You better climb the ladder and try to make your way there and maybe you'll get there, but probably you won't.

Christianity says you are separated from your God because of your sin.

And so your God came down to you in the person of Jesus.

And he put on flesh and he lived in this world and was tempted and tried in every single way that you and I are tempted and tried and yet did what you and I could not do.

He was without blemish, he was without sin.

He lived an actual perfect life.

And with his perfect life, he became the only sacrifice that could pay the price for all of our sins.

When Jesus went to the cross and shed his blood for those who believe in him, he covered our sins.

We are said to be in Christ when we put our faith in him.

And when we are in Christ, we are back in relationship with our Heavenly Father.

I wonder what storms in life you're going through.

You see, the beauty of the cross is that there is always consequence, and yet Jesus took the consequence for us, the consequence you deserve and I deserve.

He took it on our behalf.

He went in, scripture says, like Jonah was in the fish three days, Jesus was in the heart of the earth three days, but then even death could not hold him.

He came back to life and made the promise that you can defeat death as well.

And more importantly, you can be back in relationship with your Heavenly Father.

Something we do at Meta Church, there's nothing magic about it.

We just try to create some space so we can process what God might be saying to us.

And so I want to invite everyone in the room to just close your eyes right where you're at.

You can bow your head, close your eyes, just create some space for yourself, create some space for the people who are around you.

And what we do here at Meta is we just get really honest.

Anything less than that, than brutal honesty with yourself, really is a waste of time.

So I'm gonna ask you to be vulnerable.

I'm gonna ask you to be honest.

The reality is we all go through self-made storms.

If you're not in one right now, then you should be thanking God for the ones He's already brought you through.

If you're not in one right now, beware, there's probably another one coming.

We are imperfect people, jacked up people, as we say here.

So often when it's our plan and God's plan in competition, we choose our own.

But if we're paying attention to the storms, when we don't trust God and we run from God, we run into storms.

Those storms, instead of being this punishment and consequence, oh, our God is so angry.

Instead of that, you can see the love behind it.

A God who's so desperate to get your attention, a God who would follow you to the edge of the world, a God you cannot outrun, a God who will pursue you, a perfect father who wants relationship with his children so desperately that he would send his one and only son Jesus to die on our behalf so that everyone who believes in Jesus will never die, but will be given eternal life, will move from spiritual death to spiritual life back into relationship with our Heavenly Father, so we no longer have to navigate the storms of life alone.

I want to ask you what storms you're going through.

Maybe you're in relational storms right now, you're feeling a distance from your friend group.

You don't want to admit that it's you, they've moved on, you haven't.

You're selfish and you know it.

You're just hiding it.

What are the storms that you're hiding?

To everyone on the outside, you look good.

Everyone on Instagram, you look good, you look successful, you look happy.

You might even look a little bit cocky about where you're at in life right now.

But if they could see the depth of insecurity inside of you, if they could see the fear that drives you every day, the turmoil inside of you as you try to put on a brave face.

What are the addictions that have caught you in a spiral that are creating storms in your life that you're either too scared or maybe too prideful to ask for help with?

And you need help.

God did not create you on an island, God blessed you with a community, God blessed you with a family, loved ones, people who will help you, help you get out of the storm and back into the life that your heavenly father gave you to live.

What are the storms?

And are you ready to trust God with them?

Are you ready to trust your church with them?

Are you ready to trust your spouse with them?

Are you ready to trust your parents with them?

You don't have to live in self-made storms any longer.

I want to talk to anyone in the room who has never had a moment in time, a moment in your life where you've put your faith in Jesus, where you have acknowledged, Jesus, I do believe you are actually God.

I believe you came to earth, you were perfect.

I believe you died and it was for my sins.

I believe you defeated death and came out of the grave.

I believe you're gonna come back for your people someday.

Jesus did all of the work, and all he asks is for our faith.

Do you trust him?

If you're here today and you've never had a moment in your life where you've acknowledged your belief in Jesus with every eye closed, I want to ask you to do something both vulnerable and courageous.

I want to ask you right where you're sitting to just slip your hand up in the air.

You can go ahead and do that right now.

Just where I can see who I'm praying with.

Acknowledge, amen.

Many, many hands ready to change their eternal destiny today.

Many, many hands ready to move from spiritual death to spiritual life and come back into relationship with their father.

I see you guys.

I see you.

Thank you.

Here's what we're gonna do.

Every person in the room, believers and people who are ready to receive Jesus alike, we're gonna pray a simple prayer to affirm our belief.

I'm gonna ask everyone to do this so no one feels singled out.

I want you to repeat this affirmation after me.

Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God.

I believe you died for my sin.

I believe you rose again, and that you're coming back someday.

And so I thank you, Jesus, for a new eternal life.

Having heard your affirmations, let me pray over you, Jesus.

I know that you, our Heavenly Father, all of heaven, is rejoicing over lives made new.

We are seeing salvation come to this local church that we call Meadow.

We are seeing your Holy Spirit work through the lives of the people who are making up this movement.

We are seeing lives restored, we're seeing people step out of the storms of their life, we're seeing people reconnected with their Heavenly Father, and we thank you.

Help us to trust you, to change our mind, to turn around, to run back to you.

We ask all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Church, I want to ask you to stand with us as we worship together.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

If this was helpful to you and you want to help us get the word out, you can subscribe to this podcast.

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If you want to get connected further with what MetaCurch is doing, you can go online to metachurch.tv.

There you can learn how to take next steps.

You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit, and you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

And I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.