We're going to be in John Chapter Three today, and as I'm, as you're going there, if you want to look at some of these pictures that we have scrolling, look at that John loved it. When I took this photo, he was like, I just can't wait. Just Would you please take my photo right now? These are pictures of us. That's the best I kind of you, Debra. I'm sorry. I wanted to get a shot of everyone. And I was like, and that was it. I should have said, you know, turn around a smile or something. But it's alright. She was praying. So that's good stuff. Hey, that's Dr. Shields. I want to I want to make sure I got a picture of her for all of y'all. So as you're praying, you can put a face she's gone. Now. There's there's your back. Actually. You can get a picture of her. Yeah. Anyways. There's Luciana photo bomb and kind of back there. No, it's awesome. That was my favorite picture. But anyways, we went to Mitchell Nelson on Friday, you know, Wednesday. Seth and I had this issue sometimes where we just like, you know, when people start talking, you take off on a plane, and you have no idea where it's gonna land you just are talking. That's when you realize you talk too much. When you just start going. You're like, it's Friday. Wait, no, it wasn't Friday at all, was it? On Wednesday, we all met there at five o'clock apologize to everyone for the kind of early start. But that's all we could get. I know a lot of y'all have to work and don't get off till five, six o'clock or something like that. But they close the school down at six. So that's as early so we will continue to do that. We went through the school we prayed we prayed in the library for a little while. We got to walk through the halls they open it up to we got to go into all the classrooms or into Dr. Shields office and wherever we wanted to go. We just she just opened the open the floor up. She actually walked around with us and talked with a bunch of us and different things like that. She was incredibly grateful. And even sent me an email the following day, just telling how grateful she is and giving some opportunities for us to serve, which we'll talk about. Great. You can share that later. Can't you Greg? All right. Wait until preachers amazing sermon that gets everyone ready to go do something and then we'll give the opportunities to serve. humble myself. All right, Jonah, chapter three. I'll just briefly before we just dive right in here, you get that this is a whale of a book. I don't know about you. Okay, before we before we get into the scriptures, I do want to mention, just kind of really quick, tell the stories like this, the highlights of what's going on if you haven't been here, or if you forgotten some of the story here. Seth is doing a pun to Jared right now I know. That's what he's doing. I've taught him well. Jonah gets this call from God. Right? God says I need you to go and I want you go speak against the people of Nineveh. Which what was he speaking was he speaking candy canes and lollipops? Judgment destruction, like God, God's justice is coming down. And it's not good for those who were on the other side, those who were doing evil. And guess what? Nineveh was an evil city. So guess what His call was his we're gonna see Nineveh is going to be destroyed like that was it was a tough calling that God had. And this actually plays out like, like a comedy. It's almost comical how Jonah does exactly the opposite of what he should do for you almost got to sit back and go. Are you serious? Do you ever do that about yourself? Sometimes you can laugh at yourself, you know that right? Like, you can go that was just ridiculous. That was absurd. What was I thinking? Right? That's kind of the thought that you get as you as you read through this, especially when we think through and we realize that not only is God doing this for Jonah, he's also showing an illustration of the people of Israel, and how Israel was called to go into be a light into the nations and go into the nations and care for the nations. And they've continually failed to do so it was almost comical, the way they would run away from what God's calling was, instead of run to God's calling. And that's what Jonah does, he runs completely away from God's calling. He's like, I'm gonna get a far away as I can. I'm gonna get away from the temple, I'm gonna get away from the presence of God. I'm out of here. And as he does that, he finds himself on a boat. And as Greg mentioned this last week with a bunch of pagan Gentiles. He doesn't want the Gentile he doesn't want those pagans saved. And yet he's sleeping in a boat, and God uses him to save a whole bunch of pagan Gentiles who call upon the name of the Lord, in that, I think God probably just smiled like, there, take that Jonah. You think you're gonna think you can get away from what I'm telling you to do? And Jonah's got a bad attitude and God's still using them. God can still use us with bad attitudes. He would prefer good attitudes. But don't cancel yourself out because you have a bad attitude. to reality. He finds himself thrown overboard. He finds himself swallowed by a fish. I have no idea how horrific that would be. Yeah, I'll stop with the fish puns but it had to be it would have to be It had to be pretty bad.
Now I've got myself messed up in the belly of the fish, you get to see Jonah's cry. Now, there seems to be as we're gonna see here, some repentance from Jonah some turning, but I don't think he's, God has got him completely. He is not in the spot that God really wants him to because it's hard isn't totally repentant. And we're gonna see this as a story progresses, that he still has no heart for the people of Nineveh. He's just like, gosh, if you got if you're gonna throw me overboard and swallow me by a fish, I guess I'll do you know what you tell me to do. But I think Greg made a incredibly good point that I think one of the cruxes of this whole story is that I'm going to read very quickly in chapter two where he says, I call to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me out of the belly of she'll, I cried, and you heard my voice, that idea that there was this death that had to happen to Jonah, in order for Jonah to participate in God's mission. And this theme is actually all throughout the scriptures. Like, there's this theme of God wanting to renew the earth and there happened to be a death that takes place before like, if you look at the flood, what happens there, there's literal death actually, there's figurative and literal like gods like I need to renew the Earth, the we're heading in the wrong direction, so that death takes place so that renewal in righteousness, no other preacher of righteousness could actually come and do that. You see that in people's lives like Joseph like dude gets thrown into a freaking pit, you know what I mean? Like he's down in the pit. And like, then he sold into slavery, he's thrown into jail, like there's this death that takes place. But after that, God is is brings forth this this renewal for them. He was used to save the Save the Egyptians, yes.
Mm hmm. That's right.
Was that? Yeah. So Mike was saying, for those who are on Zoom, that Hannah made the great comment that Jonah was baptized, right. And that's exactly right. And that, as he did that, I'm gonna end up talking about baptism at some point, too. But that's a great point. But as he did that, he was he was, he was born into participating in the mission of God, like reborn. It's so beautiful. It's so incredible. I mean, I can go back and we can look at the Egyptians. And we can see the Israelites that were baptized into the Red Sea, and they came forth like, God does that. That's incredible that Hannah said that her parents are must be pretty good parents. I don't know. Bonnie, gotta give a shout out Barney. So beautiful. Thank you for sharing that, Mike. Really appreciate that. So let's actually get into chapter three. But let's think like for us, for us to participate in God's mission, oftentimes, I mean, we have to we have to, we have to go through a death. That's why Jesus says, if you decide to if you if you want to follow me, take up your cross daily follow me like it's there's a daily death that we have to self. Because our self wants to rise up and our self wants to let's just be real. I would rather watch Netflix and I would rather I don't have Netflix, Hulu or whatever I have. I would rather chill at home than then be out and doing tough things like this is a tough call that Jonah had that God has to Jonah. But it's a beautiful call. And it brings renewal. Me sitting at home watching Hulu isn't bringing anything to anybody except for myself. Verse 10, of chapter two says that the Lord spoke to the fish and spewed Jonah out upon dry land. So that's where we left off is that Jonah is now spewed upon the dry land. Now verse three, chapter three, the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. I'm gonna stop there for just one second because as I read this, I think it was this morning, the Holy Spirit was just so powerfully heavy on my heart, reminding me that Jonah had already received the word of the Lord Jonah had ran completely away, in the Holy Spirit was like, listen, that didn't disqualify that did not remove his calling. So just because he screwed up, just because he ran away from the calling that God had on his life. It didn't mean that God said, Oh, I'm done with you, Jonah, you can't do it. And I just felt like there were some people that need to hear like you may have messed up in your life. Or maybe you felt this strong call early in your walk with God and you're like, Man, I'm just do it. And then you just kind of got into life and been doing it. It just because you've done that and ran away from that doesn't mean God said, Well, you don't have to do it anymore. Right? He was this is an encouragement. And he's saying that that call hasn't been removed from your life. We know the call that God has for the people of God for us, as a church to to be missional to go and to make disciples and all these things that we talk about all the time, that call because if we haven't participate, it doesn't mean it's removed. And if we've done bad things, it doesn't mean we're disqualified. You may have screwed it up like I have, I wish I could go back to like my 20 years ago self when I was 18 years old, just getting on fire just ready to go for Jesus and be like, Dude, don't do this. This was really stupid. You made a mistake here, you screwed that up over there. Don't start this thing like this. I made tons of mistakes. I've made tons of mistakes. And I continue, I will continue to hopefully, not as many. Hopefully I get some wisdom over the years. But just because you've that's happened to you. It doesn't mean hey, I'm done. God's not done. As many times as Israel rejected in screwed up, God said, Nope, you haven't lost it. You're like my calling is still on you Israel. I don't care if you like it or not. Jonah obviously didn't like the calling. And God said, it's still on you, man. You still got to do it. So verse two says, He said get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it. The message that I tell you, Greg said this last week. I love this back. In chapter one, this is the same thing that God really tells Jonah to do. He says to get out, he says Arise, go. And I think that this is really powerful. Because God doesn't say sit and stay put. God doesn't say, hey, send ambassadors to Nineveh, and bring them to Israel, and I will speak my word to them. He says go to the darkness. He says go to the wickedness, like arise. Now that you have been reborn now that you've gone through these waters of baptism, you have something to do. Like, it's not just go to church, you know, like, you have a job, we have a job. And that job wasn't like something super, like exciting and fun. You know, it wasn't like, hey, you know, I got a job for you. It makes $200,000 a year, you know.
There's nothing wrong with making $200,000 a year if you're using it for the Lord. I don't want anyone to say it. But my point being that it wasn't it wasn't something easy. It was a very difficult calling. It was a challenging calling. Why? But why? Because God loved the people of Nineveh, he cared for them. He cared for those wicked pagans that worshipped other gods. It's so easy for us to look around at our culture, our society, even look at our city, and just almost like Jonah, just say, Forget them. They deserve it. We wouldn't say that. But we basically say that with our actions like, well, you know, they did it to themselves. And we cry out, oftentimes God let your justice come, let your justice come God, you know why God delays his justice, because he doesn't want any to perish. Like, there are places where he does this justice is released onto the earth. But like when there is delayed justice, God has mercy and compassion. And that's this, you know, the guitar that John says, you got the justice you have the mercy that you've had, these are all the characteristics, the attention that God has is so beautiful and so wonderful. And yes, there are moments whenever we are used as God's instruments to release justice onto this earth. There's time for that. But there's also time when God goes, really, I really, really want these people to turn, and I need to give them another chance. God gave me how many chances God given us. I mean, ridiculous. Now sometimes I go God, this is this is getting ridiculous. I don't know how many times I have to screw up in this area of my life and you still you still are there and you're still having your compassion, you're still having your mercy on me. Jonah had a mission to go do to go into wickedness, and to proclaim this message because God cared about these wicked people. If God didn't care, he wouldn't have done it. Verse three says, So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh according to the Word of the Lord. So here is the part of repent because repentance means to turn it means to change. It doesn't mean to say I'm sorry. So there's a part of repentance that he's like, actually, at least in this situation, turning back and going to do what God says and tells him to do. In the verses still says Nineveh was an extremely large city. A three days walk across. So Jonah had to go proclaim a very difficult message for at least three days as he walked across Nineveh who would want to do that? Seriously? Like, that'd be rough. Like you're going into a wicked place and what is he proclaiming? Verse four says, Jonah began to go into the city going on a day's walk, and he cried out 40 days more Nineveh shall be overthrown. So this is Jonah was a fire and brimstone preacher. Oh, I'm gonna step on toes there. Yeah, this was the message that God gave him. Sometimes God's message is I love you and you're amazing and all this good stuff. And sometimes it's, Hey, here's an area of your life or people of God, here's an area you need to improve on. He's like a good teacher or a good coach, right like I can't just be like, Oh, sweetie, you're so good at this all the time. And God stretches us, he grows us. He's a good God. He knows there's more in us, and he's pulling it out. And here, this was a message like, hey, justice is coming, because God has just got here it was about to flow out in God's destruction of the city of Nineveh, but prior to he's gonna give them one more chance. And so Jonah has to go when he has to declare a hard message. We have to we have to do that sometimes. Right? With do that with our friends, we have to do it, you know, with coworkers like there's ways to do things. But this is true. This is reality. Right? It's going to be overthrown. Verse five, shows us one of the reasons Jonah probably didn't want to go in the first place. Because I'm going to guess he had an inkling that this might take place and that this might happen. It's comical. The way Nineveh responds versus often the way Israel response is or didn't always respond poorly. You have like King Josiah, you have times of renewal in times of repentance, you have these things, so we're not here to bash that. But oftentimes, they didn't and they would get captured by the Assyrians or, or by the Babylonians. Nineveh, his response was, and the people of Nineveh believed God. So they, they chose to first of all, they had to believe the message that was given any of us it'd be so easy just to kind of go well, oh, there goes Jonah, that guy. He just, he's got he's one of those preachers that has those fire words, you know, and just ignore him. We think we have seen that right? Maybe we've said that before in the past. I've heard those preachers only God only says positive things I've read. I don't know.
You got to read the Bible. This was positive in the sense, I guess for the people who have never if, if if they would respond. So they had to believe God, but what was so big was that it wasn't just an intellectual belief of God that stayed in this. Okay, cool. Yeah, I believe that something bad's gonna happen to Nineveh, it actually produced something in them. So when they believe God, they actually did something about it, right? Just like Jonah had to go do something like the rebirth, the renewal, the the rebirth that took place, drove Jonah to well fail, initially, but to actually go and do something. God had a mission. God has something for the Ninevites to do. And it says, Listen, this is just so powerful. He goes through just declaring and we don't know if this was the extent of his message. We don't know if there was if there was more or if he simply cried this out over the city over and over, I don't know, doesn't say it says they proclaimed a fast and everyone great and small, put on sackcloth, isn't that didn't crazy, like this response of these pagans of these Gentiles, they don't even have the presence of God. They're not even around the temple or Jerusalem or anything like that. They hear that there's destruction coming to their city, and they decide oh my goodness, we are going to fast everyone great and small. Like as a people as a nation as we are going too fast before they don't even know who this God is. They don't they never even use the term Lord here. Like the fishermen did or whatever they were the people on the boat by were fishermen. They're kind of groping in the darkness. Trying to go oh, man, I'm not sure what's going on. But we're gonna do we're gonna do something great and small they put on sackcloth, sackcloth was rough material you can make socks out of that's why it's called sackcloth. It'd be like the whole people saying going into mourning and say we're going to fast and they go and they take we take off all the Gucci that everyone's wearing around here and Armani. Does anybody have it? No, I'm just kidding Okay. To talk to you but taking off our our, you know, the clothes or that we've been wearing and putting on like tattered garments just into go into this morning. And what's even more powerful is that in verse six It says, When news reached the king of Nineveh ghost research king of Nineveh and you can have fun with that, because this is the only place in history that mentions the phrase king of Nineveh. So it might have been the king of Assyria. It has been a ruler. Interesting, okay. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne. Think about this, this is a powerful ruler here. He hears that this message of destruction is taking place. He sees that his people are humbling themselves. Great song for this right. They've humbled themselves on the side of the Lord. They put on sackcloth, they put on ashes. Well, it'll say ashes here the king was second. He rises from his place of authority that's what the throne represents. he humbles himself. Knowing that destruction is coming, he rises from his throne. He removes his expensive robe, exchanges that covers himself with sackcloth, and he covers himself and ashes humbling himself before God. This was very convicting to me this week. Like I thought, whenever there's things that have come into my life, or even for my city, have I have I gone into serious prayer like this serious, humbling myself serious intercession even before the Lord to say, God, we need you. We need you. We need you God. We know that you don't want the people of Nineveh to perish. We know that you don't want the people in our city to perish God. We want to partner with you and cry out for them. We don't want to be like that. He not only sits in sackcloth and ashes in his response, but then he has he proclaims he has a proclamation. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles listen to this, this is listen to what he says. No human being or animal in that interesting. No herd or flock shall taste anything. So this is a decree from the King. Don't even feed your animals. They shall not feed nor shall they drink water. Why does he mention the animals, the herds, the flocks? We've seen? Like I think this would be weird to us. Right?
What have you said guys? We're gonna fast for Mitchell Nielsen, don't feed your dog. Okay? Don't feed your cat. How about that? How would you feel you'd be like, John is a little bit crazy. You're like, Well, John, we were with you for a while. But let's go talk to the shepherds. But here's the thing in there in this agrarian culture, this was their economy. Like, this was like your flocks, your your your cattle, all this, your livestock, all this stuff, the grain, all these things that you have, this is the way that you buy and sell and in live your livelihood. So they humbled them so they're self so much they said, God, wherever you're at, we we humble our entire beings. We humble our entire economy to you. It's it's yours. We stopped work in fasting and praying and crying out how powerful how powerful is it that this pagan nation, they don't deserve God's grace, responds in this incredibly beautiful way. It even says, human beings and and animals, so shall be covered with sackcloth. Not only do I declare that you shouldn't feed your dog and cat, you need to put some sackcloth on them to do you think what in the world the crazy. It shows the extreme like this is they believe God and they humbled themselves and they humbled their economy, they humbled their persons, they humbled everything. And it says And they shall cry mightily to God. So they're called to prayer, to petition to cry to God, in complete humbleness. All shall turn from their evil ways, and from the violence that is in their hands. So not only are they called to fast to pray, they're actually called to to do something in changing their life. This is true repentance, right? Like, hey, stop the evil. We're going to stop this. This is incredible. This city would become the capital city of Assyria. Imagine if they had not humbled themselves, we would not be talking about this right now. This is real. This was this isn't a fairy tale. You know that right? This is the actual real thing that took place. But because they humble themselves before God, because they cried out before the Lord because they actually changed the way that they were doing things. Something awesome happens. But verse nine says, who knows? Who knows? Like that's I'm saying it almost feels like they're like, let's just let's do what we can. And that's in such contrast, Israel, who knows God who knows the presence of God, who knows the law of God, who knows the character of God, and even though they have all that many, much of the time they are seen walking away from the purpose and call of God. And here's this Gentile nation who doesn't even know what God who God is humbling themselves, giving up their economy doing everything they can to walk towards God and to repent. Right. This is why I, I think, you know, Jesus says words like the sinners and The prostitutes and the tax collectors are getting into the Kingdom before these people of God. Like these rough people, these wicked people, you know, oftentimes these types of people are the ones that are the most incredible warriors for the kingdom, the most incredible people like I was having a conversation with some people the other day, and they were saying it's up there rough around the edges, too. Oftentimes, they were saying, Who is your Samson in your ministry? What that means is God fulfilled some really cool stuff. He went after the Philistines in did a great, great work against them. But Samson to get there just mess stuff up all along the way. Anyone know like that? Anyone know anyone like that? Like they were talking about who was the person that probably cusses a little too much. That probably drinks a little too much. You know, that. There's a lot of things I could probably say right now. But you know, what, they're actually doing what God tells him to do. And people are coming into the kingdom through that person. I kind of get that sense. Like, you know, it's not always like, we get this idea sometimes that like, we're called to be the most morally pure we are. But we ignore the fact that God calls us to go into do. Like, we can't just sit there and say, I don't do this. I don't do that. I don't do that. And and not walking what God's calling calling us to do. That's why, man oh, talking about get fired up. Maybe? I'm not wanting to preach Amos. Right, right. Greg.
You're talking about that the other day. That's an Amos where God got it. He's talking about the day of the Lord and he and Amos is crying out against the people of Israel, and I'm tired of your festivals. I'm tired of your singing. I'm tired of your sacrifices, basically do justice and righteousness, like, stop singing your songs? Stop getting together just to have these things. Just do what I say. God's looking for people that will just do and I love that because sometimes I'm rough around the edges. Thank you, Lord, for Your Grace. God, who knows God may relent change his mind so that we turn away from his fierce anger so that we do not perish. In verse 10, amazing. God saw what they did, and how they turned from their evil ways. God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it. I think it's really interesting that God, this verse focuses on, not the fact that they fasted, not the fact that they they cried out, though, that was important, but it hones in on they changed their ways. Like it hones in on the fact that they stopped. The reason why the evil and the wrath was coming was the wrath was coming was because excuse me of their evilness because of the evil city that was take place. When God saw that they were like, I'm done with this. I'm done with these evil ways I'm done with this wickedness. I mean, can you imagine how evil the city probably was for God to do this? Think of all the wickedness that was probably going on in the city, for God to send his prophet to say, Alright, we're done with this, like, we're starting all over. Sometimes you have to have a death to bring renewal and to bring life right. We talked about that, like, all right, we got to start over in this area over here or just be done with the with the city of Nineveh. And yet they turned, and yet they changed. And God took away. Isn't that incredible? I would love to tell you we'll talk next week that Jonah was super excited about this. And that he rejoiced in the Lord. And he doesn't. But before today, let's let's just examine our hearts. I hope that we're doing that right now. Hope we've been examined, let's examine our hearts to think through what God has called us as a people to do what God is calling us to do. I think that as as individuals that are part of this group, we've talked about how we fasted and we've prayed and we've God's given us some open doors at Mitchell Nelson, I was over at Taylor place on Thursday saw the works that's happening with inner city and the people that are involved in that and stuff like that God has given His Church admission he has, we're not immune to it. Okay, we can't just sit back and go well. He's called for us to release the realities of his kingdom, the real the idea that God's kingdom has come near really means something we're ambassadors for His Kingdom, we are called to go and make disciples and make disciples of Jesus. And we all have a role in that our role is not identical, right? It's not I think I've screwed up in the past by assuming everyone can does it the same way it has the same thing. But the fact that we are to all participate in this that is the call that God has for us, and what I don't want to be the guy that runs that gets comfortable. Jonah was comfortable with his life. Jonah was probably a morally pure guy. But he just didn't like the idea that God and he was fine with staying in Israel, he was fine with going to, you know, the temple, he was fine with singing songs to God, he was fine with this, but he wasn't fine with going out into going to a wicked city and hat and proclaiming this stuff message. I want to be like that. I want to be, I want to be fine with going and doing what God's calling us to do. And here's the cool thing is like God is giving us Greg will even share with you. God is opening doors. It's just It's our choice. Rather, we'll turn and I know many of us do like this is not a but it's our choice. What will we do with this? What will we do with what God calls us to do? Will we give it our all you know what will make a mistake? We're screwed up. You can get mad at me. Right? We'll probably make some mistakes here and there. But our hearts coming together as one to say we want to be what God created us to be we want to do what God called us to do was going to be hard. It's gonna be challenging, you're gonna get frustrated. You're gonna try to help people out that take one step forward, two steps back and one step forward. You're like, God, what is going on? But over time, they're slowly making progress. Like we have those opportunities. What do we care? Like? That's the thing. God loves our city. God loves Murfreesboro. God loves Rutherford County. He wants to see broken people made whole he wants to see wickedness changed. And he has set up the way he has set this thing up is it's us who do it.
Like that's why he's That's right. It's not it's not he doesn't come down. He came down to the person of Jesus for the longest he did. That's it now it's our job. And we can participate in this mission. How exciting is that? Right? Um, it's it's amazing. Lord. But I, I asked Lord for forgiveness for any time. And every time that Lord that personally even I have have walked away from your calling. Lord, forgive me. And I think this is this will just meet me personally, forgive me for all the times I've screwed up. And because I've screwed up, I failed like Jonah to walk into your calling until you had to swallow me to get my attention. I've done it many times gone. I don't want to be like that. I don't want to keep doing that father, as a people we want to come united together and say we want to follow your path and Lord, I'm just I'm grateful for the people here at stones river Lord, I'm grateful for the hearts here that I see. Want to do this want to participate, father are already participating have participated for 1015 20 years here as a family. I Lord, I just ask that we would continue to come together as one and listen to your voice. not run away from your calling. But run to your calling. Because there's a lot of people Lord who, when if your justice comes. If they haven't heard the message if they haven't seen the lifestyle, it's not going to be well for them. Father, what we do matters. Help us to understand that if we sit it matters if we go it matters, whatever we do actually has implications. And let us be the people that go and that do. We can't do it without you. We need your power. We need your spirit. We need your presence. We need your healing. We need your restoration. Jonah was a regular dude was a guy. It was your word that changed the city. We need your word and your power and help us to be obedient to it. Jesus name amen.
