Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction: A few years ago I began teaching Bible at Bethel Christian School for 11th & 12th grade.

I began to notice that some of the students were struggling with my tests and the amount of information I was asking them to remember.

The curriculum we were using was pretty challenging so I decided to give some of the students a “second chance.”

I tried a variety of things to do with them that I thought would help them learn the material, but at the same time get a better grade.

After making some adjustments and after the kids began to learn my teaching and testing style they began to do better.

The only student that failed my class that year was a student who simply refused to do their homework.

I’m so glad God doesn’t just write us off the first time we mess up or fail in life.

I’m glad we serve the God of a Second Chance.

That has kind of been the theme as we’ve looked at the Book of Jonah, but it surely is the theme of .

Would you turn there with me?

Scripture Introduction: So far on Jonah’s journey we’ve seen God call him to go to Nineveh, we’ve seen Jonah rebel against God’s call and go in the opposite direction, we’ve seen God send a storm Jonah’s way, he’s been thrown overboard, swallowed by a whale/fish and vomited up on dry land.

Now notice what God says in Jonah 3...

He is a Second Chance Father

Explanation:

Notice .

Let the words sink down deep within your soul . . .

“Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the SECOND time...”

God had already come to Jonah once and commanded him to go to Nineveh and preach His message and Jonah had refused and rebelled.

He had gotten into a ship and headed the opposite direction.

God would have been completely just to be done with Jonah and not have given him another opportunity to do His will.

He would have had every right to put Jonah on a shelf and use someone else.

But He didn’t.

He had a job for Jonah to do, a plan for Jonah to fulfill and so He offers Jonah a second chance.

3 days journey—7 1/2 miles long?

Illustration & Application:

is a beautiful Psalm that reminds us of God grace, mercy and longsuffering.

It is a Psalm that reminds us that we have a “Second Chance Father.”

Listen to some of the words...

:

Did you see that?

Our Father is MERCIFUL (compassionate) and GRACIOUS (forgiving)!

He is SLOW to ANGER!

His love is ABOUNDING & STEADFAST!

Where would we be today if He just dealt with us according to our sins?

If He just dealt with us according to His holiness and righteousness?

What if those attributes were not balanced with His love, mercy and grace?

He knows our FRAME!

He knows we are weak, He knows were are just “fragile jars of clay.”

I’m so thankful we have a SECOND CHANCE FATHER!

Application:

Some of us in this room, have ROYALLY messed up as God’s children!

We have rebelled against our Father at times, we have walked in disobedience at times, we may have spent a few nights in the belly of God’s discipline . . .

but we should rejoice and celebrate the fact that we have a Father in Heaven who says to His children:

,

What do we see in this Isaiah passage?

We see that God is a “Second Chance Father!” God refers to Israel as “children He had reared and brought up” but those same children that He had delivered, nourished, protected and cared for have rebelled against Him.

They have BITTEN THE HAND THAT HAD FED THEM!

They had been unfaithful to Him.

They were spiritually sick and diseased.

But what does He do?

He gives them a SECOND CHANCE!

He offers them an opportunity to repent, and turn from their evil and wickedness and learn to do good, seek justice and correct oppression.

He lets them know that even though their sins had stained them severely, they can be washed and made clean.

We serve a SECOND CHANCE FATHER today and we need to say like the Psalmist said at the beginning of in :

He is a GOOD, GOOD Father and I’m so glad He is a SECOND CHANCE FATHER!

That is the message we must take to others . . .

We Must Share His Second Chance Message

Notice

Explanation

First we Jonah was to deliver God’s message!

He wasn’t to deliver his own message, He was simply to deliver God’s message.

That’s exactly what Jonah did.

He went and delivered God’s message.

The message was short, simple and to the point.

Notice again the message in verse 4: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

Does that sound like a “second-chance message” to you?

It may not sound like it, but it actually was!

I like what the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary had to say about this message: A threat always has two intended outcomes based on which option the receiver chooses.

Whenever a parent makes a threat such as “You’re going to be in trouble for not cleaning your room,” the child understands that if he cleans his room, he will not be in trouble.

The ability to avoid disaster is inherent in the word of judgment…[God] threatens judgment as a God who is slow to anger and abounding in mercy.

Jonah knows this because he later says that he knew that is what the Lord would do (4:2).

Jonah understood that mercy was riding with judgment when he took the message of the Lord to Nineveh.

We must remember that God is a God of justice and holiness and purity and wrath.

This is why judgment was coming upon Nineveh.

They were a wicked, vile, violent people who deserved God’s judgment, but because God is a God of mercy, grace, love and longsuffering He sends a prophet their way to warn them of the impending doom.

This message is not just to say you are going to be destroyed in 40 days PERIOD…but rather you are going to be destroyed in 40 days, but because I love you and am giving you an opportunity to repent I am sending you a prophet, a messenger to warn you and to help you and to give you hope!

There’s a couple of things that we see about Jonah’s message:

It was delivered with urgency and passion…The Bible says, “Jonah called out.”

Other translations says “Jonah cried out.”

It can be translated “shout or proclaim.”

It was delivered clearly....Jonah clearly told them what was going to happen if they didn’t repent.

One again let me refer to the commentary I mentioned earlier: Jonah has to be the one to take Nineveh the bad news so that they can have a chance to hear some really good news.

(p.

38)

Illustration

Repeatedly, throughout Scripture, we are given the command to share God’s “Second-Chance Message” with others as well.

If you have been forgiven by God, if you have been set free from the bondage and penalty of sin, if you have been born again, if you have been made into a new creation in Christ Jesus…how can you keep this Good News to yourself?

& say the exact same thing:

also says:

Jesus told His followers this in :

:

There is absolutely NO way a child of God and a believer in Christ can get away from their responsibility to share God’s Second Chance message with others.

We have the greatest news and hope in all the world and we MUST NOT keep it to ourselves!

Application:

Greg Laurie: God didn’t tell Jonah to go to Nineveh and be a good example or a silent witness…God specifically told Jonah to “preach to it the message that I tell you.”

When we use the word preach, it might make you think that you have to yell at people.

But that isn’t so.

In fact, preaching can be conversational.

You can preach through an e-mail.

You can preach through a post on your social media page.

You can preach conversationally.

The emphasis isn’t on volume, it’s on content; it’s on verbally communicating the great good news of the gospel.

We’ve been called to do that…preaching is God’s primary way of reaching people…God chose to reach people through ordinary, flawed people like you and me who faithfully share the Gospel through our words (page 67-69).

Laurie: