The Compassion And Judgement Of God

Morning, good morning.

Welcome to Christ greetings in the name of our Savior.

If you're a student, you're dismissed to go with Miss Morgan or Mr.

Weldon or Miss Hannah.

It's nice to see your faces.

We're in the middle of a series dealing with a little book of Jonah.

You can read the whole book in about well less than ten minutes.

And it's an amazing little story.

I hope you've been reading along and pondering some of what the Bible reveals to us about the prophet Jonah.

And the more we read it, the more we begin to discover and realize that the little book of Jonah is not about Jonah.

It's about us.

We're Jonah.

And how am I like Jonah?

And what is God trying to do in my life to help undo those parts of my life?

That's really the point that we're going to ultimately, hopefully, land on.

Last week we covered chapter two.

That was an endeavor, wasn't it?

We did our best.

We did our best.

We gave it a yeoman's effort.

And um he prepares enough for like a six-week thing.

So we we do our best.

No, it's all good.

It's good preparation.

And I I wanted us last week to leave chapter two.

That's where Jonah is in the, he spends three days and three nights in the belly of this fish after being thrown overboard.

And God does something miraculous in his life while he's in that very difficult, dark place.

He had no idea while he was in there that he was going to get out.

We know it and we assume it because we know the rest of the story.

But he didn't know it.

All he knew was that he'd been thrown into the stormy seas in this big uh uh the book of Jonah calls it a great fish.

Jesus calls it a great monster.

He didn't call it a fish, he calls it a uh a sea monster.

Now it was a fish, I'm not saying anything about that, but interesting that he called it a monster.

And so Jonah spent three days and three nights in that sea creature, and um God did some neat things in his life um during those three days, and uh winds up, he he spits him out on the bank the uh with the with the clear intention, I want you to go where I told you to go originally and give the people of Nineveh a message that from me.

And uh wanted us to sort of think about three questions.

I'm gonna come to you in just a second.

But uh in my study of that chapter, chapter two, uh, in Jonah, uh, it left me, first of all, just being reminded of the of the answer of that sea creature.

What did Jonah do to save himself out of that sea creature?

What what was it, how did Jonah participate in his salvation?

If you want to see it as that, he was saved out of that fish's belly, wound up being alive on the beach.

Um what what was Jonah's participation in that salvation?

What did he do so that he could be saved?

Very, very important question, and I would appeal to y'all.

Um There's only well, I won't get into all that today.

I'll just say that I think it's an important question.

What did Jonah do to be saved from death?

The answer is nothing.

It wasn't his effort, it wasn't his trying, his gritting his teeth, it wasn't, it wasn't even his faith.

What did Jonah do to participate in his salvation?

And the answer is goose egg.

Nothing.

Makes me think of what Paul said to us in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

For by grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God.

It's a gift, not of works, lest anybody can boast.

Jonah did not get up off that beach covered in those fish scales and juices and go, Whew, man, I need a medal.

I deserve a medal for my salvation.

No, no, no.

He did nothing.

Second question that I thought about was.

Whatever you want, are you unhappy?

If you're unhappy, then I'm going to change the whole, everything I'm doing so that you can be happy.

No.

Same plan that made Jonah run away.

Zach same plan when he got out of that fish.

God didn't change anything.

What God offered Jonah was a savior.

He did not offer Jonah a Santa.

Anything you want, buddy.

Third thing that I thought about was just by the time you get to the end of chapter two, it's going to even be validated more in chapter three and four.

But by the time you get through chapter two, it's very obvious.

Jonah, there is no one in the Bible any more a jerk than Jonah.

He is a bona fed King Ahab, King Saul, Judas.

I'm thinking of all the bad people in the Bible.

I mean, he's a rat by anybody's definition.

And yet, God's salvation pursued and caught this rat.

And do we understand that no matter what we've done, no matter what we've done, no matter what's been done to us, our anger at what's been done to us, our shame of what we've done, I'm not minimizing the seriousness of our decisions or the decisions and their impact on other people.

But that doesn't, those don't affect God.

They affect God in his heart, but they don't affect God's ability to redeem us, to reach us, to save us, to help us, to deliver us.

And it's so important that we get that.

Nobody in the Bible, anymore, bigger rat, nobody in the Bible deserved for God to say, you've stepped over some kind of a line.

You I'm moving on to greener pastures.

There is somebody else on the planet that's more willing, more good, more uh obedient, more a person of faith.

I'm gonna move on to somebody else.

You've stepped over.

You're you're you're not even on the B team.

You're not even on the team.

God's grace is greater, Paul says, where sin abounds, God's grace abounds even more, and uh none of us can get so far away from God, or feel so badly toward God, or have so many horrible things done to us that we are beyond the grace of God.

The love of God, the attention of God, the pursuit of God.

It's very important that we see that.

Now, whether we believe it or not, that's another, that's a that's a whole nother thing.

God has to show us that and convince us of that.

But whether I believe it or not didn't change anything.

It's still the truth.

So, okay, enough about all that.

You got a couple of uh poems you want to read to you?

I do, I do.

So from this little book.

Um this one's great because there's a nice little pun at the end.

It's called The Great Intruder.

Of course, this is from, these are from Jonah's voice.

It is exasperating to be called so persistently when the last thing we want to do is get up and go, but God elects to keep on haunting like some Holy Ghost.

I wish I'd written that.

Um I do.

Um here's one that Larry likes this one.

This is the one he he picked.

It's entitled, Counselor to the Almighty.

Think twice before you pardon.

Men repent, even in ashes, but repent again of their repentance.

Take the wiser bias of my advice.

Confine your charity to such good neighbors as your humble servant.

You like that, repent of repentance.

Yeah, and I love the fact that he was just a few moments earlier, he was crying out, God, I'm literally entangled in death.

Have mercy, have mercy, have mercy.

And God showed him mercy.

He gets out on the beach.

He does not want to show that same mercy to other people.

He picks his anger right back up.

Picks it right back up.

He repents, and the next week we're gonna look at how everybody, everybody repents of repenting.

That's the and and you know, we that good that sounds odd, but what idea describes you and me any better?

How often do we repent of repenting?

Oh God, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.

Next day, oh God, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

Next day.

We repent continually of our repentance.

Jonah, same thing.

Yeah.

Oh, here's one more.

It's called intercession.

Abraham, I like this one.

Abraham interceded for Sodom, but Jonah couldn't have cared less if Nineveh had harbored one relatively innocent inhabitant or even 120.

They all looked alike to him.

Seeing he hadn't tried, seeing he hadn't tried to see them.

But God's vision is better than 2020.

I think that's kind of a powerful deal.

Yeah, that's a deal.

Uh-huh.

We look at groups of people, and because of their economics or their address, or the color of their skin, or their gender, or their religious affiliation, we see this big lump, this big blob of people.

And as long as they're a big blob, that's it's when you when they have names, and you can see the color of their eyes, and they have faces, and you know their story, you know what they do for a living, you know their wife's name and their how many children they've got.

When their dad died.

Then all of a sudden you see them a little differently.

Then they're not this big, and how God, He never sees big blobs of people.

And that's not the way God's vision is praise the Lord, it's better than 2028.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you know when that happened to me?

So teaching school during the pandemic with everybody in masks was really, really difficult for me because, and I'm gonna use this phrase intentionally, everybody really did look the same.

I mean, I and I didn't know them, and they were all new students, and they all come, and I've got the yearbook, and I'm trying to match the names with this masked person.

Um, and and it was really hard, and I did not like it.

And I realized then that metaphor for me, you know, of looking out and saying, you know, well, I didn't say this.

All you people are just all alike.

Because I I couldn't, it took a long time to differentiate, and the voices were muffled, I couldn't hear.

Um so then when everyone took their never, I really prayed I would never view people as anything but individuals.

That's a challenge, isn't it?

Sometimes lump them all together by their politics.

Um well, let's read the third chapter of Jonah real quick.

You can follow along if you've got a copy of the scriptures.

It'll be up on the board if you don't, so that's fine too.

Um Jonah chapter 3, it says, Then the word of the Lord, and if you've got a copy of the scriptures, it'll it'll Lord is in all capital letters.

Jonah 3 · chapter mention

What that means is that that's the name Yahweh.

Anytime in your Bible, Lord is in all capital letters, that means Yahweh.

So then the word of Yahweh came to Jonah a second time.

Go to the great city of Nineveh.

And the word great there just means big, uh uh uh significant, large, and it can mean size or it can mean prominence.

Okay, go to this great city in size, go to this great city in prominence and reputation and influence.

It was actually one of the largest cities in the world at this time, and it was the capital of the most powerful nation in the world at that time.

Go to this to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.

What is that message?

What's the message that God gave Jonah?

We have to go back to chapter 1, verse 2, and what that message, what God told Jonah originally to go and tell the people of Nineveh was, go and proclaim to Nineveh that its wickedness has risen up before me.

Go and proclaim to Nineveh that its wickedness has come up before me.

It's risen up to me.

It's a very unusual little phrase.

And it's a phrase that runs through the Bible.

Uh when uh Cain killed his brother Abel, the Bible says that the blood of Abel was crying up to God.

When God was about to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, uh the angel of the Lord told Abraham, the the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah is it's coming up before me.

And then if you keep reading, it'll say it about the people of Israel.

God will say at different times in the prophets, the the evil of my people is coming up before me.

And what it specifically refers to when it's talking about that often, it says it all the time.

This is a common idea, that the that it's sin or it's wrong is coming, and it's almost like the pain of the people that are being oppressed, because it also says it about uh when the Israelites will not be kind to the poor.

The cry of the poor is coming up before me.

And then also it says it about when workers, field hands, peasants, blue-collar people, when they're being treated wrongly by the rich, when the rich won't take care of their workers, the Bible says the the work, the the that wrong is calling out, it's crying out to God.

And it's the same idea over and over and over again.

And it's almost like the pain or the wrong is calling out, or it could also be smart people would tell you that it could also mean that literally nature, the world, not us world, but the world, the physical planet, witnesses the wrong that God's image bears do, and the and the the world that God created says, that's not right.

It's almost like they're not accusing God, but they're saying, God, you you created all of us.

Mr.

Tree's not doing anything wrong.

Mr.

Bear's not doing anything wrong, Mr.

Ocean's not doing anything wrong.

Stars aren't doing anything wrong.

Your image bears, they're doing wrong.

You need to do something about this.

It's an incredible image.

That its wickedness is coming up before me.

I love that image.

Anyway, okay.

Go uh and proclaim to Nineveh that its wickedness has risen up before me.

Okay?

Let's see.

Verse 3.

Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord of Yahweh and went to Nineveh.

Now Nineveh was a great city.

It was the most powerful city on the planet at that time.

It was the capital of the Assyrian Empire.

And the Assyrians were a, when I tell you they were bad, there is no people group other than maybe the Nazis.

I guess that would be the group that we would, you know, have.

There's nothing redemptive about them.

They're just bad.

They're evil.

They're wicked.

They're that and that would be the Assyrians are still studied to this day for their cruelty in military tactics.

And um uh you can go, Shirley and I have had the privilege of going to the British Museum.

That they've dug up Nineveh.

They know where Nineveh is, and they've excavated on a huge section of Nineveh, and uh the palaces and the buildings and the shops and the homes.

They they've dug all this up.

And the British uh borrowed a lot of the things uh from from them from the excavations and took it to the British Museum.

And you can go and see these what covered the walls of the palaces of the kings of Nineveh, of Nineveh, and uh a lot of it had to do with the pictures of what they did to, when I tell you, was people groups who wouldn't surrender to them.

And it was, it was, when I tell you, it was horrible.

It was things like skinning people alive and the by the new the uh some of the the things that the Ninevites did to people, the Old Testament says shit tells us that they did them actually to the people of Israel.

So we we have examples of that, but nonetheless, um they were very cruel.

Let me just leave it at that.

So uh it took three days to go through the city.

Jonah went a day's journey into the city and proclaimed 40 more days and Nineveh will be overturned.

Now, in English, that's eight words.

Wouldn't you love for me to preach an eight-word sermon?

I know some of you would.

I can't.

But Jonah, he preached an eight-word sermon in Hebrew.

It's five words.

Five words.

That ought to make you curious about the sincerity of Jonah wanting the people of Nineveh to really hear a word from God.

Just tell them eight five words.

Literally five words.

Or eight if he spoke English.

Okay?

Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

It's almost, I would take it to be sermon sabotage.

He's warning, he's leaving out.

Sort of like those of us that have got children.

You know, your kids will leave out uh some of the information, you know, for their own benefit.

Well, uh Jonah did that.

So anyway, okay.

Or the tone, you know, you say to a kid, say I'm sorry, and he may do it, but he might to his sister be sorry.

You know, so the tone could have been, yes, I'm here to tell you a God to, you know, but well, and here's the point.

He didn't say that.

Notice what he left out.

Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.

By who?

Who's gonna overturn our city?

What does overturn mean?

When uh yes, we know when, but why is it?

He didn't even tell them it's because of their wickedness.

Forty more days in your city's gonna be overturned.

That's all he what he left out is incredibly significant.

Notice what the response is.

The Ninevehit believed God, and a fast was proclaimed, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

Now, before I continue, I've got to say this to you.

This happens a lot in the Bible.

In Hebrew language, in particular, and in Greek language, but very much more even in Hebrew language, they had a habit, a literary way of expressing, where they would tell you the result and then they would tell you why.

We often will tell the why before the result.

But in Hebrew language, they'll tell you, when they're talking about events, they'll say the end result, and then they'll go back and tell you what caused that end result.

Okay?

So the end result is that the Ninevites believed God, and a fast was proclaimed, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

Why did that happen?

Well, let's see.

When Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth or burlap, camel's hair, and sat down in the dust.

Your translation might say ashes, but it's the same word, dust and ashes.

This is the proclamation that he issued, the king issued in Nineveh, by the decree of the king and all of his nobles.

Don't let people, animals, herds, or flocks taste anything.

Don't let them eat or drink, but let people and animals be covered with sackcloth, let everyone call urgently on God, and let them give up their evil ways and violence.

Who knows?

God may relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.

But when God saw what they did, I'm sorry, when God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction that he had threatened.

Um I'd love to have about a year talk about that chapter that I'd like for y'all to go home and think about related to this chapter.

The first one is please don't forget when you're in the when you're in your fish belly, whatever that it means, you're at the waiting room at St.

Jude.

You're in divorce court, you're in bankruptcy court, you're trying to get your kid in rehab.

God's got God is involved in that.

You and I can debate and strategize and philosophi and all that stuff till the Lord comes back about who causes what and why things happen.

When you figure it out, write a book and I'll read it.

But what Jonah clearly says is that all that happened in Jonah's life happened.

Jonah's fault, sailor's fault, fish's fault, weather's fault, God's fault, Israel's fault, Adam's fault.

Everything that happened in Jonah's life.

Hear the word of the Lord.

Why did all that happen?

So that the Nine, God, do you see?

God's not mad at the Ninevehes.

They're the most cruel, horrible, vicious people that had ever existed up to that time.

God's not mad at them.

He loves them.

He wants to redeem them.

He wants to stop their evil so that they can enjoy the blessings of living good lives, and so that the rest of the world can enjoy the blessings of Nineveh living good lives.

Everything that happened in Jonah's life was to get him to that gate.

How many little girls for the last 41 years?

How many little girls in the last 41 years have seen your little hand and benefited from being around you for a year, two years, three years, depending on how long they're around you?

Why did that happen to Sherry?

Was it this or that or this or that?

Who knows?

And to be quite frank, who gives a rat's rear?

Who cares?

Why did it happen?

So that little girls that struggle with insecurity and body image and not meeting the standard, I don't even know the names of the magazines anymore that would that would exist.

But whatever that is, the the Kardashian people, what they don't when you don't meet for it.

That standard, if that's the standard.

Why did that happen?

So that little girls could go, you know what?

You can be beautiful, you can be uh uh have impact, you can have joy, you can succeed and flourish, and you don't have to be perfect.

That's why that happened.

And everything else that goes on in our lives, we're so consumed with trying to evaluate why we wind up with no time to ask the question, now what?

Or what now?

What is God, what does God want me to do now?

Such a huge idea.

Yeah, that's a great point.

Change the question.

Change the question.

Yeah, if you how many times have you heard me say, if you ask the wrong question, you'll always get the wrong answer.

Always.

You'll never get the right answer by asking the wrong question.

Why is almost always the wrong question because it's so unanswerable.

It's too many variables.

Ask another question, yeah.

Did you want to read that little deal?

I'm good.

You sure?

Yeah.

Okay.

I have a better suggestion though.

I thought of something else.

Okay.

So talking about Jonah not wanting to deliver the message made me think of a short story that I teach because he hated these people, right?

So um, like people would have hated, Larry's already mentioned, people would have hated the Nazis for what they did.

So we we understand this.

There's a short story that Flan Marie O'Connor teaches.

It's called Revelation, and it's great, and I recommend it highly.

And there's a woman, um, the main woman, and she hates a certain group of people.

She she looks down on them, she finds herself superior to them, she doesn't like them, she doesn't love them, she calls them names.

Anyway, so at the end of the story, it goes all through the story.

At the end of the story, she is kind of a churchy person, imagine that.

So she is praying to God and she says, I need a revelation, I need to know, you know, from you.

Someone has called her a name and she's I'm not that, and she's asking God for a revelation.

Well, in this piece of fiction, she gets this dream, she gets a revelation.

And in it, it's this like a pathway to heaven kind of thing.

And people are walking from here to there, going to heaven.

And in the revelation, she in from God, she is behind, going to heaven, but she is walking behind the group of people that she feels she's superior to.

And so that's it.

That's the whole thing.

She prays to God for a sign, she has this revelation, she comes out of her little dream, and she turns around and turns the water off and walks away.

The idea being that if I have to go, if I'm going to heaven with that group, and if they're going in front of me, you know what?

No, thanks.

Dude.

Dude.

You know, and I mean that's just the I find I have gave me chills.

I find that sadly believable.

Giving you something to think about.

Okay, I'm not saying this is for sure perfectly true what I'm about to say.

I believe in heaven, therefore I have to believe in hell.

I do not understand how you can read a book that talks about both about the same amount of time.

And I believe in this, and I don't believe bless you, but I don't believe in that one.

That doesn't seem reasonable to me, but that's me.

But what if hell is where people go?

Not because God's mad at them, and not because God says, Well, dead gummit, you didn't do what I wanted, so I'm casting you into that.

What if hell is nothing more than the place people go when they discover?

Oh.

You mean heaven is a place where the poor are blessed.

The downtrodden are the ones that are lifted up.

You mean this is a place where everybody that makes mistakes and hurts each other, they run around all day long forgiving each other?

Oh, you mean heaven is a place that for eternity I'm gonna have to serve my mate and worse, my enemies?

And my house might be next door to people that are different than me, that vote different than me, that look different than me, who that hang out in different clubs than me.

And I, you mean that for eternity I'm gonna have to be around that?

No thanks.

I don't know what the alternative is, but I've no thanks.

You think about that.

If heaven is where everything operates, like the life of Jesus portrayed.

You mean where people, if they slap you, I've got to turn the other cheek?

If they take advantage of me, I've got to go the extra mile.

I've got to help people that I know are not uh carrying their own weight.

They're not working as hard as I am.

You mean I've got to help him and I've got to do it with a good attitude?

No thanks.

Wonder how many of us really want to go to heaven?

Real quickly, I can't I wish we had two days to go camp out on this, but I just gotta say it.

I want you to think.

Use your brain.

What was God's plan to use Jonah and to redeem Nineveh?

What was God's plan?

For Jonah to hear the word of the Lord, say yes, sir, walk to Nineveh, proclaim God's message, and for the Ninevehes to believe that message and be saved.

Would anybody, seriously, I'm being sincere, would anybody disagree with that?

Would anybody say that's not the original plan?

No, it's the original plan.

I believe every miracle that took place in the book of Jonah.

Everyone.

I believe I'm literally.

I believe literally in the storm, the fish, the worm, the plant.

I I believe in all of the miracles of Jonah.

I really do.

But none of those miracles were God's original plan.

I was you don't even know this, but I was driving.

Uh I was it's a long story, but I had to help a lady out to get a car, and I had to drive her to Union City, Tennessee to get this car.

It was a nightmare.

But anyway, along the way, about every three or four miles, I hadn't seen these signs in forever.

Like 30 years.

But but they used to hear about this stuff 30 years ago, 40 years ago, but I'm driving to Union City, Tennessee and saw these signs.

Miracle Crusade coming.

Signs and Wonders Crusade coming.

And then it had the dates and the address.

Come to the crusade to see signs and wonders and miracles.

I don't even know if they, well, they're doing it in Union City because I saw the signs.

I don't I don't I don't hear of that anymore.

But do we do we realize?

And I want you to think.

Do we realize that I believe God does miracles?

I pray for miracles.

I pray for miracles.

I've been praying for a miracle in Rachel's life.

What, 15 years or 10?

I don't know how long.

I mean, I believe in miracles.

I believe God does miracles, I pray for miracles.

I really do.

But that's not God's first plan.

That's B-team.

People that are infatuated with seeking after, focused on miracles.

You're missing the point.

God doesn't want to do miracles.

He wants us, he wants to have such a relationship with with me or with Karoon or with Tim that he just can say, Hey, I'd like you to do this.

And he would love for us to go, I love you and I know you and I trust you enough.

Yes, sir.

And we go and do it.

That's God's plan.

What we do is we say no, God, or we ignore God.

I'm not even listening to you.

And then life blows up, the world falls apart, everything goes haywar.

God, I need a miracle.

God, I need a miracle.

And I believe God does miracles.

I do not walk out here and say that I don't believe in miracles.

I do.

I've been praying for your uh Gail for your husband.

I've been praying a miracle for your husband.

I'm praying for that.

But that's not God's plan.

That's not his best.

His best plan is for his people to love him and trust him and to hear his voice and then obey him rather than sitting around waiting for him to miraculously undo the consequences of our disobedience.

Yes, God wants us to have a life that is miraculous, if you mean miraculous in that it's unexplainable, but the miraculous life God wants us to have is the mirror where I watch Terry Downs and go, dead come it, Shirley.

Amy and go, how can she be able to like she forgives?

Or to watch Amy and go, how can she be a servant to such a jerk of a husband?

I actually do think that sometimes, but how can she be such a servant to her husband?

How can Brynn be so gen, who is that generous?

That's not reasonable that anybody would sacrifice financially that much.

Who would live a life like that?

That's the miracle that I think God wants us to be focused on.

I do believe in miracles.

But if you read the Bible carefully, where Abraham tells the rich man, rich man says, Send Lazarus back from the dead, do a miracle.

And Lazarus says, if I sent him back from the grave, your brothers would not listen.

Or the Pharisees said, Jesus, do a miracle, do a miracle.

And Jesus said, a miracle won't help you.

The only sign that I'm going to give you is the sign of my life, my death, and my resurrection.

And on and on and on.

The miracle that I think the Bible wants us to emulate the most is Paul and Barnabas being wrongly arrested, wrongly beaten, and wrongly thrown in jail.

And at midnight, they're not calling Corey B.

trots, trying to sue everybody and their brother.

They're not trying to smuggle in some spoons to dig a hole through the jail wall.

They're not trying to mobilize the prisoners into a riot.

What are they doing?

They're not even praying for a miracle.

God, open up the gates and let us out.

No, the miracle that Paul and Barnabas are doing, and these are miracle-working dudes.

They can do miracles, but they don't pray for a miracle.

They're worshiping and praising God in joy and all the, because Paul's deliverance wasn't the point.

It was the salvation of those other prisoners and of that Philippian jailer and his family.

And as they watched the miracle of Paul's response to injustice, they wanted to know that God.

They wanted to know that God.

No, no, I've said.

Do you have anything?

I have one more thing.

Do you have anything you want to add, Brandon?

No, no, no.

I'd love for you to.

No, no.

I've said I told my Flannery O'Connor story.

Okay.

I have one more thing.

And it was a good one.

It was a good one.

I have one more thing that I want to say.

And this applies to everybody in the room.

I mean that.

So don't miss it.

But I want to speak to dads for just a second.

And I know we're, you know, we live in a day where you're not supposed to say anything about all of that.

But anyway, clean up all that.

I really want to say a word right now to Dale and to Bran and Tim and Karoon and Jim and Jerry.

I want to talk to y'all, to Fatty, Clay, I want you to hear me.

I think there's a very important question that you ought to ask as you read Jonah chapter 3.

Jonah 3 · chapter mention

And the question that you ought to ask is, what caused the city of Nineveh to respond to God in faith and salvation?

Was it the superior preaching skills of Jonah?

No.

Was it the miracles that Jonah did in front of the people?

No.

I believe with all of my heart what God used to bring salvation to the most wicked, hopeless, dark, evil, godless place on the planet was when that king heard the word of Yahweh and he believed it.

The Bible says that he got up off his throne, dressed in sackcloth, fasted, and covered himself in dust.

And I want you to think about that for just a second.

You thinking the king of the most powerful city on the planet had a palace full of dust?

But it was the most spotless place there was.

Where would the king find dust to cover himself with out in the street?

That king got up off his throne and walked out into the street in front of everybody, covered in sackcloth, saying no to any food or wine or anything pleasurable, and he sat in the middle of the city street, mourning over the evil that he and his people had done, and terrified at what might happen because of that evil.

And because he did that, everybody else in that city said, well, dead gum it.

If our leader is that broken and grieved, if our leader is that terrified at what our destiny might be, maybe I should follow suit.

I said all that to say this.

That applies to anybody in this room.

But I'm telling you this.

There is something powerful when a man who by DNA, I want to create the illusion.

I have no weaknesses.

I don't make mistakes.

There's nothing I can't take care of.

I've got everything under control.

If there's a problem, you caused it.

If there's somebody that's wrong, it's not me.

I've got to watch out for my image, my reputation, because that's what matters most.

And if you grew up in a home where your dad was like that, never hearing a dad say I was wrong.

I'm sorry, I made a mistake, I overreacted, I got mad, I spoke out of turn, I said something ugly.

Would you forgive me?

Would you forgive me?

That's the home that probably many of us grew up in.

I'm just telling you that when the a man at work around his employees, his co-workers, a husband, a father, a son, his willingness to humble himself, to visibly not see if you grew up in a home like I did, where when my dad would would do wrong, he would try to make it better.

He would tell jokes or he'd buy you something or take you somewhere.

He wanted to make it right.

But the idea that he would look you in the face and say, I was wrong, will you forgive me?

I'm telling you, there's something powerful about that.

And it can soften and transform and redeem the hearts of people that might not ever be redeemed any other way.

Your kids, your wife, your, they're waiting.

They're waiting, Brett.

They're waiting, Chris, and they're waiting for men that are more concerned about being right and doing right and making things right than they are other things.

Other things.

I mean, the idea that a king would do that.

No, no, no king would do that.

Only a king that actually believes the word of the Lord, the word of Yahweh, and only a king that cares about the salvation of his people.

Anything you want to add, Brian?

Not a thing.

Peter said, humble yourselves under God's mighty hand so that he may lift you up in due time.

Jesus said it this way in John 12.

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the dirt and dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it'll produce a mighty harvest.

That dying, that sucks.

It sucks.

But if we're willing to die, to say I was wrong, I'm sorry.

It grieves me that I hurt you.

Would you forgive me?

That dying can produce life where there was no life.

You good friend?

Okay.

John, Rachel, y'all want to help me?

If I've asked you recently, forgive me.

It's not that I'm trying to play favorites.

I just forget who I ask.

I'm old.

We're going to take the Lord's Supper.

And I might as well use that verse.

John 12, 24.

Jesus said that if a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone.

But if it falls into the dirt and dies, Jesus was willing to fall into the ground.

Because Jesus was willing to fall into the ground, be placed into the tomb and die.

We're now, at least many of us in this room.

I know some of you.

I know Dale.

I know Tim.

Jesus' willingness to fall into the dirt and die has produced a harvest in your lives.

I know that about you.

I know that about you.

I know that about Brandon.

I know that about Rodney.

Where people are willing to die to themselves, life can be created and shared.

Jesus didn't just tell us to do that, he demonstrated that.

By giving his life, his body, and shedding his blood, so that we could experience that life that he shares with us.

And you claim him as you're sitting in Christ to be your Savior, and you claim him as your Savior, then I invite you, actually, I'm just representing him.

He invites you to come and to take bread and wine and to eat and drink.

And just remember how much he loves you.

Remember what he did for you.

Remember his promise to transform the moments in our lives where we feel like we're in the belly of a whale and take that which we view as death and transform it into life.

If that is your belief, your hope, then I invite you to come and take and eat and drink and remember and give thanks.

So you come and do that.