WW23: Session 3
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
RECAP:
Session 1: Follow, Trust, and Fear no matter the consequence
We don’t get to pick and choose
We’re either all in for God or all in for self
Session 2: Praise, Confess, Repent, Follow (PERSONAL)
God is loving, merciful, and gracious, call out to Him
Don’t remain proud and stubborn, it won’t work out
HOOK:
Ground Hog Day/Nightmare/Time Variants
Ground Hog Day/Nightmare/Time Variants
God displays His love by sovereignly working to save undeserving sinners for His glory and their good. Will you fight Him or follow Him?
1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. 6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” 10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
“RESET”/Dejavu
Jonah hears and obeys
God mightily works and the city as a whole repents
Jonah is there for ONE DAY, barely starts preaching and BOOM! City-wide repentance
Think Burbank - Meridian
Believed what God said
Fasted and mourned in sackcloth (a display of self-denial)
Call out to God
Turn from evil
Ask God to turn and relent from his anger as they turn and relent from evil
God answers their prayer.
Redemption
What we see here is a miraculous display of God’s love.
He re-enlists Jonah
He gives Jonah the message to preach
This is simply unheard of. An ISIS-Vegas city that worships plenty of false gods and pursues evil and violence: hears the message day one and repents—that is an act of God.
Do not think or confuse that maybe Jonah was some spectacular preacher
Sure, maybe he came straight from the fish and so maybe that got their attention.
But to have this kind of widespread repentance, to have them see their sin, confess it, call out to God, so readily and immediately!? THAT. is an act of God.
Our God is a loving God. He loves His creation. He’s not cruel. Yes He’s just and yes He punishes sin, but he is also merciful and gracious.
THIS WHOLE WEEKEND!:
God displays His love by sovereignly working to save undeserving sinners for His glory and their good
God is consistent with his character. When the Ninevites confess, fast, mourn in sackcloth, and cry out to God, he hears them, and he relents from what would be their distraction.
He is loving, gracious, and merciful beyond anything that we could deserve.
1. Ask God to help you love the lost like He does.
1. Ask God to help you love the lost like He does.
Emphasize
1 Corinthians 13
22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
Philippians 2
10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Matthew 28:19-20 THE GREAT COMMISSION
Jonah was commissioned to take God’s message to Nineveh so that they would repent. God doesn’t want people to perish in their sin.
Why should we?
Sometimes it feels difficult or complex. We say we’ve experienced God’s love, we say we love Him and others, that we don’t want other people to perish, but then we don’t share the gospel. So do we want them to perish? Are we lying? Have we not experienced God’s love?
These are good questions and I think we need to ask ourselves these things, but let’s think about what’s going on...
We get distracted
We get lazy
We get selfish
We get insulated
We become forgetful
Illustrate
Christ initiating for us
Christ suffering for us
Persecuted church
The people who initiated sharing the gospel with you
Apply
Reflect and praise God for the love shown to you
Ask that He would help you to have that same love for others
Then go out and to it, make a game plan. If you don’t make a game plan it’s probably not going to happen.
Jonah could have been like...
You could be like...
OR
Identify the people in your life
Identify their needs spiritual/physical
Pray to the Lord for those things
Figure out what you can do to help
Explain
For Jonah, the people were the Ninevites, the need was for the truth to be proclaimed so that they could know, repent, and experience deliverance. His plan was then, get there, proclaim it. God covered the rest.
2. Share the gospel with the lost in truth and love.
2. Share the gospel with the lost in truth and love.
Emphasize
15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Illustrate
Think of Paul
He faithfully preached the gospel wherever He was, no matter the place, no matter the cost, no matter the response.
Some hated him
Some stoned him
Some imprisoned him
Some tried to kill him
Some mocked him
Some believed
WE ARE NOT CALLED TO PREACH THE GOSPEL WHEN WE KNOW THERE’S A GOOD CHANCE OF A GOOD RESPONSE.
God is the only one who can change the heart and bring about salvation. Just preach the message.
Jonah just spoke a message. God did the rest.
We need to do the same.
THE SIGN OF JONAH:
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
1 And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ 3 And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.
The message we proclaim to people is this:
We were created by Holy, loving God, and we were made for Him and His glory. We have all sinned against our holy, loving Creator. For that, we are destined for God’s wrath. But. God, in his loving-kindness has made a way for us to be forgiven, to be made holy, to be restored to a right relationship with our holy, loving Creator. Jesus came and lived the perfect life, died in our place for our sin, and rose from the dead conquering death, sin, and hell. Confess your sin, trust in Jesus, repent and believe.
There aren’t a bunch of signs to produce, or things that need to happen, they’ve already happened.
Share the message, let God do the work in the heart.
Apply
Think of one person this week that you will go share the gospel with, and pray that God will work through that. Just one person!
3. Rely on God to change the hearts of the lost.
3. Rely on God to change the hearts of the lost.
Emphasize
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4 And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. 5 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8 and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. 9 And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.
22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
God wants to be glorified (praised, honored, desired) throughout all of Creation. He is sovereignly and control and working to make that happen, he is inviting us to be part of the story.
WE ARE NOT THE MAIN CHARACTER, WE DON’T GET MAIN CHARACTER MOMENTS.
God is the main character, it’s all about His glory, and WOW is he deserving of it!
God is the hero of this book, this story. He is the one doing all of the work, making things happen, and showing love, mercy, and grace undeserved.
Jonah is literally just a messenger
It didn’t have to be as difficult as it was (but God was sovereign even in that so that Jonah would repent and so that the sailors would repent)
Let’s stop trying to be the heroes guys. Let’s share the message of the gospel, pray to God and ask for Him to work, and then trust Him to work out his sovereign plan!
Apply
Know your role, commit to it joyfully!
God has saved you so you can enjoy Him and help Him in accomplishing His plan!
It’s like capture the flag. They break you out of jail so you can join them.
Think of an agent for a band
His whole job is making the band successful
However: God doesn’t need us to be successful, he kindly, graciously, lovingly invites us to be part of the process.
God displays His love by sovereignly working to save undeserving sinners for His glory and their good. Will you fight Him or follow Him?
Closing
Closing